12 Months, 12 Characters: Encouraging Reading In Children – Being Parents

With the arrival of new technologies, children and young people are more attracted to other types of activities than literature. This is why today,  parents, teachers and library professionals are forced to encourage reading with many creative and ingenious activities that can attract the attention of children.

The immense quantity of children’s books means that there are many activities to encourage reading: all you need is a little imagination and creativity! We are therefore going to present to you an idea to develop both at home and in classrooms. You will be able to work on literature for a year and encourage reading among the youngest.

12 months, 12 characters: activities to encourage reading in children

Despite the variety of activities that can be created around children’s literature, and more specifically to encourage reading, not all of them attract the attention of children. What if you had the opportunity to resolve this point for a year? With the activity that we are going to offer you, this will be possible.

First steps: choosing the characters

The first step, the one that will mark the evolution of the activity for the whole year, will be the choice of characters. So these will be the books you will be working with over the next few months. We said previously that this activity can just as well be done at home or in schools because parents, like teachers, can choose the titles they want.

The choice of titles will be based on the age of the children. It will also depend on their speed and understanding in reading. You have to take into account that there is a big difference between choosing books for a single child and choosing them for an entire class.  In the latter case, the level must be intermediate so that everyone can follow the activity.

For example, for children between three and five years old, you can work with the following books:

• Elmer.
• The color monster.
• From the little mole who wanted to know who had hit him on the head.
• What does the moon taste like?

Second step: the choice of complementary activities

After reading these books, you can create many activities, from artistic expression through drawing and painting characters to creating a set of memory cards related to different aspects of the books.

This age, on the other hand, is ideal for promoting storytellers. Oral transmission is the best way to encourage reading in children.

Other type of activities

At older ages, where children already have enough autonomy to read on their own, activities can be both more complex and educational.

For children of eight or nine years old, and for elementary schools, one of the activities that will help them the most to improve their oral expression will be the presentation of the book they have read in front of their classmates. We advise you to choose characters who will be the protagonists of several books. You will be able to use several of them during the month with the little ones.

Characters like Color Monster, Pupi, Elmer, Kika Super Witch or Harry Potter are some of the options you can choose from, among others.

The final activity to encourage reading in children

As we said earlier, the 12-month, 12-character initiative will run for one year. By the end of this year, children will have read at least one book per month. However, we must try, as far as possible, to make them read more.

In order for them to see all the progress they have made in one year with reading, you can keep a small notebook or folder on each of the books. Depending on the age, you can include data about the book, such as title, author, or publisher.

You can also add other points such as the time it took the child to read it or the grade he gave him. And why not put an illustration that shows what he liked the most?

In this way, imagination and creativity, as well as written expression, will come into play smoothly!