Fostering a Love of Reading

It’s imperative to encourage reading in your family.

Reading to your young child can boost vocabulary and reading skills before entering school. Cultivating a love of reading in your older children can open up a world of imagination and opportunity.

Time spent reading with your infant is actually conversation time. You can still read the words in the board book, but interact with your child by talking about the pictures.

Make time to read as a family. Younger children will enjoy the tale. Look up information about topics with older children to learn more about the story.

Build excitement for reading by taking your child to get a library card. Encourage older children to belong to a book club. Share books that are meaningful to you so you can discuss them. Make reading important in your home.

Listen as Dr. Corinn Cross joins Melanie Cole, MS, to share how you can create lifelong readers.

Book recommendations from Dr. Cross:

Picture books
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba (teenager from Malawi who makes a windmill and helps save his village)
Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews (famous musician as a child)
The Little Piano Girl by Mary Lou Williams (Jazz legend as a child)
Salt in His Shoes (Michael Jordan as a child )
Goodnight Gorilla
Sam’s Sandwich

Young Readers
The Rickshaw Girl 
Anne of Green Gables 
Little Women 
Little House in the Big Woods (the Little House on the Prairie series)
Fudge series and Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
Pippi Longstocking
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda by Roald Dahl
Chronicles of Narnia
A Wrinkle in Time
Secret Garden
Wolves of Willougby Chase
The Little Princess
Harry Potter series 
Rebecca
Wonder by RJ Palacio (about a boy with facial anomalies -- going to be a movie soon)