Tips for Outside the Box Learning Series: Use Storytelling to Encourage Reading

As a bibliophile, it is hard to understand that not everyone loves to read. It truly boggles my mind, yet after years of homeschooling two avid readers, my youngest refused to read. Oh, she technically could, and I’d sometimes catch her reading something, but when asked to read, she couldn’t–wouldn’t do it.

So, the first thing I did was search for the root of the problem. She needed glasses, we got them, was she dyslexic? We didn’t officially check, but my hunch was no. Did she want to cling to read alouds, and that time with me? Yes. In our case her reluctance to read was really not wanting to let go of our special time together. To combat this, I promised to continue to read to her at least at bedtime.

Still, she didn’t embrace reading. She learned but was never excited by it.

So, my Tip is this: Use story time to find what your child is passionate about.

Outside the Box Methods

Thinking outside the box sometimes means connecting things that aren’t normally connected. The easy answer to encouraging reading is the find lots of books on a certain subject, like horses, or trains, etc. Or it may mean finding comic style books because any reading is better than no reading. I disagree with that last statement. Lazy reading isn’t establishing a love for books and reading, it is making something you don’t enjoy more tolerable, but that is just my opinion.

Instead, I saw that my child had a love for stories. My outside the box thinking led me to helping her write her own books. I don’t just mean giving her an assignment to write a story. That causes a whole different struggle. Instead, I met her where she was, and I let her dictate the story to me. She learned about the elements of a good story, we talked about catchy ‘hook’ openings, and after revision, I made it into a real book A keepsake.

Holding HER book in her hand, and having it be a real book, and look like a real book. That is what hooked her. In her mind, she finally made the connection. I still read to her, but now she picks out books all on her own and reads them with excitement.

Oh, and we still write together. I hope to produce a book every school year with her.

Thinking outside the Box, means looking for ways to bring in the things your child loves and sometimes to simply chase down some rabbit holes, just for the joy of learning.

Making your own keepsake book

I have made the book “How to Make a Book: homeschool edition” available for sale. But I believe in this so much that I am offering a free template, no purchase required. You can find the link in my Free Resource Library, or you can receive in directly in your inbox when you sign up for my newsletter below.