Some of us seem to be born readers.  The love of a story is embedded within our DNA.  We have gravitated to books from babyhood.  Unfortunately, this is not true for everyone. Many of the students I work with will avoid reading at any cost.

 It is my firm belief that everyone can find enjoyment in reading.  They just need to find the right book for them. I have spent my career trying to match kids to books. This is easier said than done, but I’ve made progress.

Here are some tips:

• Be open to less traditional reading- comics, graphic novels, video game manuals etc. lead to other reading
• Devote specific time to free choice reading
• Do not react when they tell you they hate reading, you’ll drive them further away
• Get recommendations from other kids, they’ll take it more seriously
• Give them easy access to a variety of books
• Pay attention to which books are being made into movies, and get them interested in reading the book first
• Read aloud the first in a series, so that they will be motivated to go to book two
• Talk about your own reading interests
• Topics almost every kid loves reading about: animals, humor, adventure stories