Learning to Read with Joy: How to Inspire a Child’s Love of Books

From Edie: Discover fun ways to teach kids to read while sparking a lifelong love of books, stories, and learning through joy-filled reading experiences.

Learning to Read with Joy: How to Inspire a Child’s Love of Books

by Beth K. Vogt @BethVogt

I added an unexpected activity to my life this month. 

I’m teaching my 5-year-old granddaughter, Myka, who just started kindergarten, how to read. 

ASIDE: This is not where I go on and on about what children are expected to know by the time they start kindergarten. Nope. Staying focused.

Back to Myka. And reading. And what I’m calling “GiGi and Myka’s Reading Fun Time.”

Yes, I want Myka to learn how to read. But while she’s learning letters and sounds and rhyming words and all the right skills so one day she can open a book and read it all by herself, I want her to have fun.

I want Myka to fall in love with reading. With books. With stories. If she loves reading when she’s 5 years old, then a whole wide world of adventure awaits her for years to come. 

I loved the “Dick and Jane” readers when I was in school—and yes, I’m dating myself, but we all have different starting dates, right? Those simple books launched me into a lifelong love of reading, which led to my becoming an author.

It was also fun teaching my own four kiddos to read. First words, and then a book. A real book, all on their own. It was almost a magical moment for them to turn the pages and realize they didn’t need Mom or Dad to read to them.

That didn’t mean my husband and I stopped reading aloud to our kiddos. Nope, we read all sorts of books out loud to our kiddos as they grew up, including the Little House on the Prairie Series and the Chronicles of Narnia Series, both more than once.

As authors, we want readers to fall in love with our stories, don’t we?

With Myka, I’m reminded falling in love with books begins with learning to read. 

It’s a special privilege to help my youngest granddaughter realize that cat rhymes with bat and hat and pat. To go over her sight words. To help her with letter sounds because, oh yes! We’re doing phonics too. 

Learning to read? Like I said at the beginning, it’s going to be fun, thanks to a computer app with silly songs and animated animals—hey, it’s 2025, right?—and stickers and sharing popsicles when we’re done until the next time. 

Tell me, my friends, how did you learn to read? Any challenges you had to overcome? Any favorite children’s books I should put on my “must read” list for Myka? 

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Learning to Read with Joy: How to Inspire a Child’s Love of Books from @BethVogt on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Beth K. Vogt believes God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” She’s authored 15 novels and novellas, both contemporary romance and women’s fiction. Beth is a Christy Award winner, an ACFW Carol Award winner, and a  RITA® finalist. Her newest contemporary romance novel, Dedicated to the One I Love, released June 20, 2023. Her novel Things I Never Told You, book one in her Thatcher Sisters Series by Tyndale House Publishers, won the 2019 AWSA Golden Scroll Award for Contemporary Novel of the Year. An established magazine writer and former editor of the leadership magazine for MOPS International, Beth blogs for Learn How to Write a Novel and The Write Conversation and also enjoys speaking to writers group and mentoring other writers. She lives in Colorado with her husband Rob, who has adjusted to discussing the lives of imaginary people. Connect with Beth at BETHVOGT.COM.