How Hong Kong parents can help their kids become more interested in reading
Children might be discouraged from reading books if the material is outdated or overly complicated
My daughter seems to hate reading and I’m worried it will hinder her learning. I have tried everything to interest her in the classics I enjoyed as a child. How can I help her?
You need to consider which aspect of your daughter’s reading you want to improve. Is it her reading skills? Is she able to read well and sound out new vocabulary? Do you want her to tackle a wider range of books? Does she only read comic books or girly novels? Or is it that you want her to read all the books you read as a child, to learn more about morals and history from them?
Some classics teach us about how things were, and how people thought and felt in those days. They might help us to consider how we live now, and what choices we might make to live a healthier and more considerate life.
If she reads a book that mentions coal and chimney smoke in old England, for example, she may consider what we now know coal does to the environment. But your daughter is only going to get this information out of the classics if her skills are strong enough.
Some classics are written in a language that is hard for children to understand. Like the language of older Bibles, classics apply longer and more complicated sentence structures, difficult, and even archaic, words, and situations modern children are totally unfamiliar with.
