How to Instill a Love of Reading in Kids with Interactive Worksheets

Children in the modern world find picking up a book increasingly difficult. The worst thing a parent can do is force their child to read. Our article discovers the benefits of reading and how to instill a love of books with Edform.

So why teach children to read?

Reading plays a sufficient role in children's lives, much more than in the lives of adults. A book read in childhood stays in the memory for a long time, influences the child's further development, forms the world outlook, and develops certain norms of behavior.

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Students go through a lot of stress during school life. Sometimes support is not enough, and teachers struggle because of their incapabilities of helping students. However, reading can be helpful in such situations.

Studies have shown that people who read for at least 30 minutes a day have better fulfillment in life and are less stressed.

After realizing that reading has a significant influence on life, the next step is selecting the proper literature. 

It is crucial to teach children how to choose books. 

Books should be of different subjects:

• adventures
• poems
• fairy tales
• stories about plants and animals
• about children
• about war. 

Pay attention to developing the student's interest in scientific and educational literature. The third and fourth grades are ready to read about technology, natural science, and geography.

How to implement interactive worksheets in the reading process?

Teachers are one of the most important influencers in a child`s life. They take responsibility for developing the kid’s professional and personal skills. That is why the correct approach of the teacher starting from elementary school impacts the subsequent habits of the child. Therefore they have to think of the ways to achieve the main goal -  instill a love of reading in kids. The perfect solution is to use interactive worksheets.

1. Go for a bit of trick. 

Interrupting reading in the lesson at an exciting place may be an extraordinary idea. Ask as many questions as you can about their opinions on certain things you have already read in class. At the end of the lesson, give a hint about plot movement. 

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Children will remain intrigued, and you can arrange the continuation of the story in the form of an interactive worksheet. 

• Put the rest of the text in the worksheet and leave a field for the students` audio response. So they will be able to reflect on what they have read;
• Open-Ended and Audio Recorder Elements are best suited for this.

A little tip: Don't put the whole text on the worksheet until the end. Leave the last paragraphs for the class to process.

2. Make interactive presentations with creative assignments.

Sometimes a literature presentation lacks interaction because the student does not participate in the discussion. The solution may be an enticing picture. 

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The fact is that children these days are more visual because of the technologies that surround them. They like to see colorful and eye-catching pictures to be interested in something.  

Create presentations that you want to watch and listen to, and then do assignments. Be sure to leave room for interactive elements that you can add to the slideshow using Edform just in a few minutes. A small amount of time, and your students are already curious.

Depending on the type of assignment, you can use different elements:

• Use Matching to show the objects you want to pair.
• Dropdown and Multiple Choice are suitable for test tasks.
• Open-ended and Audio Recorder elements nicely illustrate students' opinions concerning debated statements. 

3. Thematic lessons.

Once a month or semester, devote one lesson to a book. Let the children prepare costumes or crafts, and if the classes are online, they can prepare presentations and stories about the characters.

The role of the teacher is to direct, and in no case force; otherwise, everything will work in the opposite direction. Try to be gentle and do interesting and exciting tasks. 

• Create worksheets with descriptions of heroes and their names using Drag&Drop elements (read more on Drag&Drop activities)
• Embed the YouTube Video. It can be a blogger's review of a book. Show children that reading is not for dumb losers.
• You can offer to arrange theatrical performances based on fairy tales at school holidays, birthdays.

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Accustoming a child to reading is like getting a habit, so you need to systematically do different activities until it becomes part of the child's habitual way of life. Interactive worksheets will be your helpers along the way. 

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