How to Encourage Reading in Kids With a Parent-Child Workflow System

Disturbing evidence suggests that the US is experiencing a reading crisis. Fewer adults and children than ever are reading for fun — in fact, only 14% of 13-year-old American children say they take up the activity just as entertainment.

Kids & reading: Where are we now?

So, why do kids struggle with reading? Put simply, it’s less interesting than it used to be when children have a world of entertainment at their fingertips. The rise of short video content, instant messaging apps, and mobile games has shortened attention spans, making it harder to focus on pieces of text.

This isn’t helping the fact that reading performance is still poor. Reuters reports that 12th graders’ reading skills are at their lowest in three decades, while reading levels are lower than they were in 2022 for 4th and 8th graders.

Obviously, we have some work to do to improve children’s reading grades. This guide is compiled by Brighterly, a learning company that offers a private tutoring reading program for kids. It aims to explore how to encourage readers at home with a parent-child workflow system in Workflowy, and what to do if your child needs additional support.

1. Gamifying progress through the book

By uploading a book onto Workflowy, you and your child can easily measure their progress. The bookmarklet tool lets your child mark where they’ve gotten up to in a session, so they can not only pick up right where they left off, but also see how far they’ve progressed in each session.

This is a really fun way to gamify the reading experience. By reaching certain milestones, your child will feel a sense of accomplishment. You can also provide rewards at each stage to encourage them to keep going. Gamification is a tactic used in some leading online reading classes for kids to boost engagement.

2. Leaving comments for discussion

Workflowy allows users to annotate their books as they go through. It means kids can note when they struggle to understand a passage of text or when they notice something interesting, like what they’ve inferred from a sentence or a change in point of view. 

Then, parents or a reading tutor can review their annotations and discuss. It is a great way to help kids improve their reading comprehension, but also to strengthen their analytical skills. By analyzing themes and content, it builds skills that go beyond basic reading comprehension.

3. Simplifying the reading experience

The structure of Workflowy helps simplify the reading experience. In both physical books and eBooks, readers often encounter long and dense paragraphs. Workflowy allows these large sections of text to be broken down into smaller, more readable parts.

You can also remove any distractions in the content or place images at more appropriate points. The more straightforward the reading process is, the less resistant children will be to it.

4. Making screen time useful

When it comes to answering the question, “Why do kids struggle with reading?”, often the answer lies in what they spend their time on. Our kids love their screens — that much we can’t deny. But instead of allowing them to glue themselves to YouTube or video games, you can encourage a love of reading. 

If your child is particularly reluctant to read, even on their favorite devices, you can use the rewards-based system. Measure their progress throughout the content with bookmarklets and ask them to write a summary of each chapter to ensure they’re engaging with the material. As they progress, they can use their device for their favorite activities for a period of time as a reward.

When kids need more support: How Brighterly helps families build better reading habits

Encouraging kids to read in their own time is an excellent way to improve their reading comprehension. But these reading statistics highlight that a child skilled at reading needs to be able to do more than simply understand passages of text.

If your child is struggling to understand their book or pick out themes, topics, and character traits, it may be time to consider private tutoring. With its highly qualified tutors, Brighterly helps thousands of kids to not only improve their reading comprehension, but also develop the essential skills that make a good reader. The Brighterly reading program does that in a few ways.

Personalized reading lessons for kids

Kids learn best when their education is tailored to their needs. Instead of going over the same old ground, each Brighterly reading tutor delivers personalized education to improve the areas children are struggling with. They do this by first giving kids a reading diagnostics test, aimed at highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. Based on the results, tutors then create a fully tailored curriculum from this, addressing those areas for improvement.

Learning from the comfort of your own home

All Brighterly’s lessons are delivered online, giving parents and students more flexibility. There’s no need to worry about finding a local learning center or spending the time traveling to and from them. Plus, these online reading classes for kids utilize kids’ favorite hobby: screen time!

And here’s one more pro point: Brighterly’s tutors are experts in using a gamified method of learning to keep kids focused and make them excited about each upcoming lesson. Gamification has been proven to boost learning outcomes, so it’s a win-win!

Free supplementary reading resources

A reading tutor for kids at Brighterly will lay a solid foundation. But what also matters is the free practice they offer. For example, the printable reading worksheets developed by their team of educators can be used in the classroom or at home as an enrichment activity, with engaging puzzles and games. These worksheets are also used as a collaborative activity in tutoring sessions.

Additionally, Brighterly offers free practice tests in the form of interactive online quizzes. They provide instant feedback on students’ performance, allowing kids to see where they went right and wrong. They also align with real school tests, thus being great for exam preparation.

Taking a multi-faceted approach to encourage kids to read

Children are growing up in a world filled with distractions and instant gratification. Combine this with the detrimental learning effects of the pandemic, and you have a situation where reading can be unappealing and difficult to concentrate on.

To reignite a love of learning in children, it’s essential to take a multifaceted approach. You can use Workflowy to make reading more straightforward, challenge-based, and collaborative. But also don’t forget to supplement it with private tutoring, so your child will soon be devouring novels the way you probably did as a kid.