Help Your Child to Love Classic Books

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For Christmas I gave my son the Puffin Classic book set. I knew they were not exactly what he'd had on his Christmas list, but would be something we would enjoy together and from which he would learn a great deal. But, I knew while the books themselves were special, the love of reading them was my goal.  

1. Make it routine. Each day, we spend 30 minutes reading classic books. Many times these are the books that are included in our read-aloud time and I will say we both get a lot from our read-aloud times.

2. Keep them available. On each of our library trips, Little Buddy picks books that he would like to read over the next two weeks. In this group, he is required to include a least one classic book. We maintain a book list of classics and he makes his selections based on our listing. And of course, we have a home library well-stocked with classic books at all age levels.

3. Have fun. While we are reading a particular classic, I research to find activities to go along with our reading. For instance, we just read Peter Pan and our local community theater held a production while we were reading it. We also spent time playing like we were the Lost Boys and spent an afternoon acting out the book ourselves. 

I look forward to our reading each afternoon. It's quiet amazing how often our 30 minutes of reading turns into an hour or more before we realize it. And that is exactly what I hoped would happen.