21 October 2008

Scenes from a Reading House

In my Sunday Salon post, I lamented the lack of reading hunger in my kids. So color me surprised when I see this going on around my house:

--M was over the moon with excitement because the Neil Gaiman books she requested from the library came in.

--C1 came to me, desperate to get a copy of The Lightning Thief before Monday so she can join a discussion group at her middle school. Luckily, she was able to borrow a copy from the kid across the street, who lives in a family of book buyers.

--C2, my reluctant reader, read Artemis Fowl for two days in a row without having to be scolded. It's a reminder to me that she will only read if it is the right book. Unfortunately, her taste in books rarely lines up with the assigned reading list.

--I caught DJ reading in his bed after bedtime. It was the third or fourth time this month I've had to tell him to put his book away and go to sleep.

As happy as I am about these developments, I wonder if they would be reading so much if I still let them watch TV on school nights. The kids rarely pick up a book on the weekends when the TV is on. I'm a TV junkie myself, so I am not going to ban it from the house altogether. I just wonder what parents do in this day and age to raise kids that are willing to pick books over TV, video games, and the internet.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One thing I did during the summer was let my kids earn computer time for reading. Reading for an hour earned them an hour of computer or PS2 time on a weekday, when they're usually not allowed to play electronic games. It was a good incentive, and they ended up finding some books they really liked.