Our son Pat is a boy who cannot get enough to read, he switches between modern science fiction and the classics. Currently he is reading stories from the Junior Classics published in 1912, as I like to collect older books. He just finished reading a section on Arabian Nights including Ali Baba and the forty thieves, The story of Aladdin, and Sindbad the sailor.
He has also just finished the first 6 books of the Pendragon series. This year he has also read Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, and Twenty Leagues under the sea, and a bunch of stories about the Greeks.
His other favorite series are all the Redwall Books, each year he cannot wait for the next one to come out.
What we did to get him to read the classics was when he was younger he read the children’s version, then when he wanted more detail we handed a harder version of the book, until he could read and understand the unabridged version.
Now just to get his younger brother Nolan to read a longer chapter book with out having a panic attack. I am thinking of reading My Father’s Dragon with him, as it was one of Pat’s favorites at that age.
We also have always used a bedtime reading rule with our children. Their bedtimes are between 8 and 9 p.m. depending on their age, but in addition to this, we afford them an opportunity to spend time reading once they are in bed. The children see this as a chance to "stay up late". We see it as a chance for them to broden their minds. If they elect not to read, it is off to sleep they go. No games, arts, crafts, music, TV, or anything of that nature. It is strictly a reading time. Our children are great readers partly because of this concept. I would not be so ignorant as to accept all the credit for their reading development, but what we have been and continue to do seems to have helped them along.
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