How do you get kids into reading?

[bayonetbrant]

They might not read w/ you stiing an example. They almost guaranteed won't without you setting one

[Gusington]

The demo-ing worked with both my kids.

[mirth]

And with your wife.

[Gusington]

She needed no training. She's a natural.

[Keunert]

not havin a tv helps big time and not giving access to tablets and phones helps big time.

don't call me leftist commie pig now. because i am only a leftist commie pig from your perspective.
i picture myself rather like Keith Moon in a Nazi uniform. there you have it.

[mirth]

She needed no training. She's a natural.

I wasn't thinking of her training, but that you need to demo certain things to her in order to win her over.

[airboy]

My parents read to me.  Two of the most common books were a children's version of the Bible and Grimm's Fairy Tales.
If you want your kids to be suspicious of strangers, read them Grimm's at an early age.

If you want a specific book suggestion - The Hobbit is one of the best kids books of all time.
The Heinlein juveniles are also very good. 

[Centurion40]

I took 40 Jr. to a big book store, and let him pick-out stuff he was interested in.  At first it was basically picture books on animals, then Pokemon, and now comics.  He still hates reading, but he is getting better at it.  He's in Grade 4.

[BanzaiCat]

I had read to my kids/had them read to me at an early age. They both will read now (they're 15 and 13), but not for pleasure, to my eternal disappointment. They WILL read school books, and devour them in a short time, but as for going out of their way to read in their 'free' time...not so much.

My daughter loves to write, which I guess counts for something, and she does a lot of drawing as well. My son will eagerly read school books, but is uninterested in stocking his Kindle or going to a bookstore.

[Airborne Rifles]

My parents read to us kids in the evening. Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, classics like Swiss Family Robinson, the Bible. It Was a good way to pass the long winter nights in our little apartment in Russia. My parents started when we were young and didn't stop. My dad also pursued his military history and American West interests and left his books around for me to look at. We would talk about history at the dinner table. Never forced reading on us, just modeled it and eventually their interests and love of reading transferred to me and my sisters. My wife and I are trying to do the same with our kids. Stick with it! It's not an arena for instant gratification but a decades long process of shaping the kid's interests.

[Gusington]

You're Russian??

[GDS_Starfury]

[skeptical.platypus]

My folks got me reading when I wax was being potty trained, it worked.

I still read when I wax. It helps distract the painful ripping effect.

[skeptical.platypus]

One night a week, instead of watching TV take the entire family to the library for an hour?

Now that you mention it, that is what my parents used to do. Sundays was walk around the Stanley Park Seawall, KFC bucket picnic at the beach, then walk to the library for an afternoon of reading.

Are you still in Vancouver? I love visiting there; one of the most sparkly jewels on the NA Pacific coast.  Stanley Park is enough to make most urban centers jealous. In my youth, I pulled many a dolly varden from Frasier and her tributaries. I do think Banff is a heck of a lot more fun to say than Vancouver, but it's surmountable.

(I'm in Seattle, WA.)

[skeptical.platypus]

this is coming into play in my world and I was wondering how you actual parents do this.
and no I'm not dating a chick with a kid.  fu Mirth.

You haven't lived until you've frolicked with a goatherder!