Just like George R. R. Martin said: “a reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only once”. And truly, reading is one of the most important acts in life. Because of it we inform ourselves, we learn, we are entertained, our curiosity grows, and so does our knowledge, we get to know whole new worlds, we improve our memory… Without a doubt, this is the power and the magic of reading.
Books have huge power over us. Thanks to them we can submerge ourselves in the world of imagination and fantasy. It is really important that we, as parents, find the perfect way to give our children the opportunity to get into the amazing world of literature and all its parallel universes.
It is really important that children see us reading in our spare time. We need to take into account that, most of the time, our children imitate the things we do as adults. This way, the youngest ones have the perfect excuse to get introduced to reading. There is also other ways to incentivise reading, such as reading stories out loud, make up games with the stories… Any excuse is a good excuse to turn the kids into little bookworms.
Below, there are some suggestions of games and techniques that will help when sharing and introducing literature. This Easter break, between plans, you have a great opportunity to start trying them!
- Create an alternative ending: It is impossible that the endings of every book they read is what they expected. For that reason, there is no better plan than to have some family time to come up with an alternative ending together. Every member of the family comes up with their own version and between all of you, you can decide which ending works better for that story. Everyone needs to justify their answer, according to the storyline of the book, as the option you chose is the right one. They will have so much fun!
- A drawn story: Every time we read a book, we imagine every character’s face, the scenery… Everyone imagines it in a different way. It is a good exercise, as a family, to draw the most important scenes in the book. Take the colouring pencils and get to work! This way, you can talk about all the little details that caught everyone’s attention, and discover what each and every member of the family sees differently in their heads. Remember that you can draw as many scenes and characters as you like. There are no rules!
- Imagining the character’s voices: Another option is that between all of you, you can create the voices of each character in the story. Every member of the family gets to choose their favourite character and will have to recreate the character’s voice and gestures (however they imagine it to be). This will get the kids to empathise a lot more with the chosen story and will make them get impatient to start the next book.
- Turn into movie stars: They will love this suggestion! It is time to act out the story we’ve just read, through actors and actresses, a.k.a. you! Everyone in the family is invited to take part in this play. Even your pets! You just have to: come up with a script, decide who is who, rehearse your lines a few times and have the opening night! You’ll do amazingly!
And long live literature!
