Motivating children to read English books with fun activities

Nicola Schofield
A child sat on a bed reading a book

Why is reading important?

Apart from being agreat hobbyand funactivity, it can help children improve in many areas of their lives through developingkey transferrable skills. Reading in their native language and English can bring a whole range of benefits. To engage everyone, they mustunderstand the benefits themselves.

Ask your students why it's important and create a mind map of ideas. You may alsowish to use some of the points below to start the conversation. Having a common idea that everyone agrees on can help build motivation and engagement in the classroom.

Improveslanguage skills

Regular reading develops children’s linguistic skills – it helps them learn goodsentence structure, grammar, vocabulary andimprovesspelling in their own language and in the English language too. Reading aloudalso strengthensknowledge of phonics and improvespronunciationand articulation.

Improves memory

It can help to develop knowledge of phonics and vocabularyrecall and improve focus and concentration– all necessary skills when learning a language.

Cultivates curiosity

Books help kids’ imaginations to growandencourage them to bemore open-minded. Theyhelp us to learn about other cultures and encourage us to think more creatively. Through subtle messages,readingbuildsanawareness of the world in which we live andenableschildren to formtheir ownopinionsand ask questions.

Creates empathy

Stories help to develop children’s emotional intelligenceandempathy towardsothers. Exploringtopics and characters allows them to learn aboutreal-world situationsand think about how they would feelinsomebody else’s shoes. It encouragesrespect for others’ feelingsas well asothercultures.

Reduces stress

It is a great way tocalm the mind and help us relax and destress. Children can learn to use it as a helpful tool in their day-to-day lives.

Develops key life skills

Children develop their confidence, communication, resilience, patience, social skills and connectwith the wider world, cultureand communities.

So how do we motivate our young learners(even our most reluctant readers)to develop a passion for reading?

Itmustbe fun,purposeful and relevant

Well-known adaptationscan remove barriers, support and encourage students’ imagination,andsparka genuine interest. Theygive purpose and relevance to the students as most students have watched a movieat some point in their lives and most students have afavorite movieor character.

Let your young learners choose

There are plenty of English Readers to choose from– if the students can choose their own readers, they will likely be more motivated and focused. Choice gives the students power and makes it more relevant to them. Ask your students to choose theirfavorite movieandhave a vote as a class. Get to know your students, find out what interests them, and base yourbook choice around this.

Rewards

To motivate students, theymust know that they aremaking progress. Reward students for their achievements – for example,createa vocabulary wall ora class book chart and give rewardslikeastickerora postcardto takehome.

Here are five practical, fun ideas on how to further motivate your learners and engage them in reading both in and outside the classroom.

1. Make a bookmark

Making abookmarkis a fun way to get children into the habit of reading more regularly. If they have their own bookmark, then they are more likelyto want to pick up a book and read it. In the activity, the children can make their ownbookmarkbased on theirfavoritebook as well asdraw a picture of theirfavoritescene.

There’s space for them to write about theirfavoritecharacter and any new words they have learned. Thebookmarkthen becomes not only a way tofind your page butitcanalsohelp kids engage in English conversations about the stories and make them feel like they are making progress.

2. Create a mind map

A mindmap is an activity that helps children to understand andanalyzewhat is happening in the book they have just read. Itis a great way to show their understanding of the story clearly. It could also be usedfor doinga short presentation on the book orfor helping towrite a short paragraph about it.

3. Write your own short story

This activity is creative and asks the children to choose theirfavoritereader. They then use their imagination to write a short story about what happens next. They can place charactersin a completely different story of their ownand send them off on a new, exciting adventureor decide what happens next in the original story.

Writing stories like this helps young people to explore their ideas, express their creativity and reinforcesentence structure, vocabulary and grammar at the same time.

4. Create a reading passport

Motivate childrenby giving them clear and achievable goals. Asking them to fill in a passport as they read a new book is a fun way to encourage them.

Each book allows each child to enter a different world andonce they have visited each place, they complete a new page in the passport and receive a stamp.You could even make this a class competition to see who can fill in the passport pages the quickest.

5. Create a character profile

Ask the children to choose theirfavoritecharacter and produce amovieposteron that person. Ask the students to draw a picture andwritekey details about the character, such as name, age, physical appearance and interests. This activity motivates the students as seeing theirfavoritecharacter in a different context can be entertaining and engaging.

With these simple activities, you can make reading a more enjoyable experience, as well as helping with learning English for kids and developing their overall reading skills.

Learn about our readers for young learners

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    By Vaughan Jones

    It’s more important for teachers to help students find ways to practice their English outside the classroom. The more efficient students become at autonomous learning, the better they’ll be able to overcome interruptions and make up for lost time.

    It will be even more challenging if you're a self-learner as you do not have a teacher looking over you and steering your learning. But it’s helpful to learn from the teaching world and pick up teacher tips that you can apply to your own studies and techniques.

    Why are learning new words so challenging?

    Students learning new words in English generally progress steadily up until the pre-intermediate and intermediate levels. But after that, they start to struggle.

    This is because there’s a big difference between the volume of the vocabulary that intermediate students and upper-intermediate students need to know.

    • Intermediate (B1/B2 level) students need to know about 2,500 words
    • upper-intermediate (B2/C1 level) students need to know about 7,500-9,000 words.

    That’s a big jump in numbers. But the real challenge is that those 5,000+ new words are not very frequent. Consequently, students don’t encounter them very often, making it difficult to recall them and leap from one level to the next.

    While there’s no simple answer to this problem, there are ways to help students overcome it. The following framework can be a big help in any classroom:

    1. Focus on the most important words:Always teach appropriate words for the levels your students are currently at.
    2. Provide memorable first encounters:You never get a second chance to make a first impression. So, ensure your student's first encounter with a new word is as memorable as possible.
    3. Teach effective word-learning strategies:Provide your students with valuable tools, tactics and resources so that they can learn new words outside the classroom, too.
    4. Organize repeat encounters:Vocabulary works on a “use it or lose it” basis, so ensure your students encounter the vocabulary you want them to learn repeatedly.

    How to teach effective word-learning strategies

    There are three steps to teach students how to learn new words effectively:

    1. Help learners maximize their exposure to English and find opportunities to use English outside the classroom

    Thanks to the internet and technology, there are many ways that students can engage with the English language outside the classroom.

    However, simple exposure to a new language is not enough – it takes much longer and is less effective than active learning. When students do something with the language they’re exposed to; it is far more memorable.

    That’s why it’s crucial for teachers to help their students seek out English in their own time and use the language, turning passive exposure into active learning.

    • Encourage students to read, listen and view things that they’re interested in or passionate about in English. For example, introduce them to new blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, or TV series that fit their interests – since personalization leads to more effective learning.
    • Help students find ways to use English in different ways. For example, they can start a learning diary, make to-do lists in English, write social media posts, and create word cards to practice their writing. For speaking, they can record voice memos or video stories, take part in Zoom discussions, or participate in speaking projects and live classes.

    2. Provide ways for students to discover the meaning of new words

    It’s crucial to help students improve their guesswork. Instead of asking online translators to translate every time they encounter a new word, they should be able to guess the meaning of new vocabulary differently.

    • One approach is to look at the morphology of words and consider word families. For example, you can ask your students to brainstorm words with a common root. Or, you can have them identify and practice common suffixes.
    • Explore “true friends” or words that are similar in English and your student's native language.
    • Help your students figure out how to guess the meaning of a word from the context. To do this, you must ensure that your students don’t just hear or read new words but also put them into use.

    One way to get students to learn and retain vocabulary is to get them to create word cards:

    • Ask students to collect ten new words that they’re exposed to throughout the week and bring them to class, like a “show and tell” for words.
    • Then have a debate about how useful each of those words is.

    This helps to connect learning inside and outside the classroom, and it’s fun!

    3. Provide students with strategies to consolidate their knowledge of new words

    Finally, teachers should give students ideas on how to memorize words outside the classroom. You can have your students produce word cards and use a Word Store booklet to practice tasks like matching words with images or definitions.

    Lastly, it’s important to teach students memory tricks or mnemonics so they can retain the new words they encounter.