Parent-child reading is not a recitation competition for parents, nor should it be a comparison meeting for children.

What is the purpose of parent-child reading? If you take this question alone, many mothers will definitely have the answer to help their children develop the habit of loving reading from an early age. This answer is quite correct, but if we ask further, what is the most critical foundation of habits and love? I personally think the answer is persistence and fun, but this is often overlooked by many parents in implementation. The so-called teaching by words and deeds, when applied to parent-child reading, means that parents must first become people who love reading. Therefore, the persistence here refers to the parents\’ own persistence. Even if the children are not interested at first, we will still insist on integrating parent-child reading into daily game interactions and becoming a part of the children\’s lives. However, now, we have reversed the priorities. Many times we don’t like reading ourselves, and our children are not interested in reading, so we give up, and in the end we blame our children for not liking reading picture books. Even if a child touches a picture book every day, at least in his little world, he will understand that there is another kind of \”toy\” called a book. On the basis of persistence, we have to talk about fun. To be honest, many parents (including myself) cannot be said to be people who really love reading. We have been forced to read since we were young, and it has been a process of \”education\”. The definition of reading picture books in our minds also comes from previous experiences. Naturally, we feel that we must \”read\” every word in the book, we must read it page by page, and we must sit down and read it. But recently I have been asking myself, why does parent-child reading have to be like this? After children go to school, they will be exposed to these so-called \”rules\” for the rest of their lives. What I have to do now is just to let her realize that reading is happy. After understanding these two points, will the problems mentioned by many mothers at the beginning become less anxious? Here, I would like to put forward the point that parent-child reading should be child-oriented. We need to respect the three rights of children in reading, the right to read endlessly, skip reading, and stare at a book. The right to not read half-reading. I mentioned in my previous article about children’s concentration (click here to view) that preschool children’s concentration is very low. This is a necessary step for development. They have the right to read half-way. Not read. As parents, we need to understand this behavior and accept it rather than judge it, but at the same time, we can also use some techniques to slowly help our children extend their concentration. First, create an environment suitable for reading. This is what I have repeatedly emphasized. If possible, you can set up a reading corner at home so that children’s attention span, which is already short, will not be competed for by other toys. At the same time, only take out two picture books at a time and let the children choose. After choosing, the other picture book is put away. Many mothers like to spread out various picture books around them, which in itself can also distract their children. Before Little D was one year old, she would run away every time she saw half of it. I would not \”blame\” her. Instead, I would say, \”Little D won\’t watch anymore. Okay, then you can play by yourself for a while.\” Mom needs to finish reading.\” Then I sat there and read the picture book with gusto. I would read it out loud and read the picture book more emotionally. At first, every time Little D played there by himself, he would try to get my attention, but I would ignore it.She (because I told her, I was reading). After doing this several times, she seemed to think that what I was doing was more interesting, so she would take the initiative to send it to her door again. The joy of reading comes from the hearts of us parents and has nothing to do with our children. When we truly love reading, this joy will be passed on to our children. After D was one year old, every time she ran away after seeing half of it, I would have an extra request for her, which was to tell me, \”I don\’t want to read anymore.\” Why is there such an additional requirement? Because as she gets older, I want reading to have a sense of ritual and not be so casual. I can respect her right to read half of it, but I need her to know that everything should have a beginning and an end. The right to read a picture book repeatedly When children master a new skill, they will practice it repeatedly, so we often find that children who have just learned to stack building blocks will continue to build towers for several days; children who have learned how to push a car will I will never tire of driving my car \”Didi Bar Bar\” for half a day. The same is true for picture books for children. After they become familiar with the picture book, they are willing to read it over and over again. This is because they are practicing and experiencing the joy of reading. So mothers, don’t be in a hurry to get your children to read your newly purchased good book. Be patient and accompany your children to read this book over and over again. At different stages of my life, Little D would have several picture books that I read dozens of times. But later I discovered that even if we read the same picture book over and over again, we can increase the difficulty by asking questions and interacting. The simplest and most suitable way to interact with children before the age of 3 is to let the children complete certain words. Some picture books have phrases that children can already say. When I read this, I can deliberately pause for a moment to encourage the children to say it themselves. come out. For example, when reading \”Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Did You See\”, when I read \”I saw a blue horse\”, I could deliberately pause after \”blue\” and let Little D say \”horse\” by himself. Next, you don\’t need to read from the book, but complete the book in a question-and-answer manner. For example, I can ask, \”What is this?\”, Little D answers, \”Bear\”, \”Well, this is a big brown bear, what did the big brown bear see?\” Little D answers, \”Horse\”. \”Yes, the brown bear saw a blue horse. What was the horse\’s name?\” Xiao D replied, \”nei~~~\” As for the more advanced picture book question method, I wrote a separate article before, You can click -> Will parents ask questions? It turns out to be the key to cultivating children\’s independent thinking ability. The right to skip reading. After getting picture books, many children always like to skip reading and turn the pages quickly. This is very normal. Think about it, we ourselves sometimes read a book roughly when we get it, trying to understand a general idea first. Why can’t we do this with children? At this time, we need to be more flexible and follow the child\’s rhythm. When Little D first started reading picture books, she loved to skip around and look for pictures on each page that interested her or were familiar with them. Instead of stopping her at the time, I would expand on the images that interested her. For example, if she loves dogs and likes to turn to the page with dogs, then I will start from the dog page and say, \”Oh, this is a puppy. What does the dog bark? Woof, woof, woof!\” (Grab her point of interest), \”Hey, what\’s next to the dog?\” (Extend from the point of interest to guide her to pay attention to other things on the page). At this time, if she is interested, I will read some relevant content on this page, and if she turns to the next page, it does not matter. Insist that each page expands from one point of interest to another, and then slowly expand again until she can focus on a full page of pictures. Treat parent-child reading with a normal attitude. Nowadays, the titles of many articles often say, \”How to create a primary school bully who reads for more than one hour.\” Therefore, inexplicably, parent-child reading has become a matter of \”other people\’s children\”. The competition has caused many mothers to be particularly anxious. There is actually no difference between loving to read picture books, loving building blocks, and loving driving cars. Children learn through play. There is no need for mothers who like to read picture books to have a sense of superiority, and mothers who don’t like to read picture books should not be particularly anxious. Little D is now 2 and a half years old. When she is in good condition, she can read picture books very attentively for more than an hour. However, her cognitive teacher and I both know that this does not mean anything, and it does not mean that she will definitely be good at learning in the future. There is a word in English called Whole Child, Whole Brain, which means that raising children requires comprehensive development of all aspects of the brain, and reading picture books is only a small part of it. Picture books do need to be read, and reading habits do need to be cultivated from an early age, but they should be treated with a normal heart. Reading is like three meals. Only in the hungry age, when we have had a full meal, we will go around and say, \”I have eaten.\” If we raise our children with a rich and abundant mentality, we should realize that reading is just a common daily activity. Parent-child reading is not a recitation competition for parents. It does not mean that reading the whole book is the first place. Parent-child reading is not the Olympics for children. The longer you read, the more you read, you are the champion. Parent-child reading is more important than reading. The important thing is that this is a high-quality time between you and your child. No mobile phones, just books and companionship for you to enjoy the process, that’s fine!