Should parents choose the books for their kids? Some people say yes, while others say no. Michael Norris, an American publishing expert, found that, despite the best intentions, it was well-meaning mothers and fathers who often stop their sons and daughters from picking up the reading habit because they have too much of a role in deciding which books their child is going to read. ( See
Parents 'must let children choose what they read" ) Kerry Luksic, a mother, writer and an Alzheimer's advocate, gave a list of tips on how to encourage the little ones to enjoy reading, and the first tip is to let the kids decide as long as the book is age-appropriate. (See
Encourage Reading )
However, on the other hand, is it always proper to let the kids to decide what books to read, in order to spark their interests? DAPHNE LEE, an author and editor, told a story that when a 13-year-old girl wanted to read Fifty Shades of Grey, the "mummy porn" trilogy that has become a publishing phenomenon because it is one of the best sellers in the New York Times bestseller list, everybody was concerned. (See
Who decides? - Should it be the child, parents, publishers or the authorities who determine what children should be reading?) Daphne pointed out that the parents should decide what's age appropriate and what's not. "The best we can do as parents is to try to encourage our children to be open with us." said Daphne. Personally, I think that it is not black or white.
However, it is clear that we should play an important role to help our kids to develop a good reading habit. No matter you agree or not, every kid will eventually develop a reading habit, from the point that they pick up their first book to read, to the point that they are fully independent. Some kids may completely reject reading when they grow up, while other kids enjoy reading. If we draw a curve of the importance of parents in guiding the kids to develop a good reading habit, we will notice that the start point and end point for all kids are similar. At age 2 or 3, most kids start to read some board books about animals. At this stage, parents have to decide which book their kids should read, or the parents read to their kids. This is the start point. And the end point is somewhere when the kids are in their middle or late teen years, when they start to read a book without letting their parents know. Some parents are well prepared for this change and successfully helped their kids to cultivate a great lifetime reading habit, while other parents are forced to accept the change and end up with a hard landing. The different result completely depends on the parents' approach to help their kids to create a reading habit during the middle part of curve.
As parents, we should always remember that we need to help our kids to develop the skills to select the right book to read and these skills will help them to form a good reading habit. The first thing we need to let our kids know is that we read for a purpose, even if that purpose is pure enjoyment. We should ask our kids: what type of book are you looking for today, and why? Let our kids think about how to select a book to read. If the kids are not sure about what they want, it is our task to help them and provide some recommendations. However, kids are the ones that make the decision.
For preschoolers or kindergartners, I think that we should actively help our children to choose what books they should read, while at the same time encourage the kids to be involved in the process of finding good books to read. We need to do some research every time we go to library. We can first browse library online catalogue and search for books that fit for our kids, and check the book reviews to know how others think about the book. We can create a book list that fit for our kids. After creating a book list, we should discuss the book list with our kids and let the kids to finalize the book list. As soon as the book list is finalized, we should encourage our kids to finish the book list so that they will not read books purely based on their interest, the same as they should not keep on eating food purely based on their own intentions. We can borrow three or four books at a time from the library. The kids may only read one or two of them. Make a note about what the kids have read and return all the books. After a few weeks, borrow those skipped books again and see whether the kids still want skip them. This way, we can properly guide our kids to read good books while our kids still enjoy the freedom to read the books they are interested. When kids grows older, and knows how to select books to read, just encourage them to choose books of their interest, and talk about books with us. We should try to read those books that they mentioned so that we can discuss the books with them in more details. If requested, we can also provide a more general book list for them to select from. This shared book selection approach can help our kids to browse through huge amount of books and still help them to build the skills to choose good books to read.
My son is about 8 years old now. He is quite happy with the approach of our shared book selection approach. Usually he will find books of his interest from a long list of books we recommends based on book content and reviews. A few days ago, I asked him to list a few books that he likes the most. He can clearly tell me quite a few of them, such as The Giver, The Old Man and The Sea, and King of the Wind. Recently he turns his interest to geography and is reading through a 300 hundred page book in this domain. I believe that as he selects more and more books for himself, he will eventually grasp the skill to find good books to read, and form a good reading habit.
