Empowering Reluctant Readers to Discover the Joy of Books - A Highly Imaginative and Visual Mind

Children who are highly imaginative or who have a visual mind often prefer to create their own stories rather than engage with those written by others.

They can find pre-written work less engaging compared to the vivid and personal adventures they conjure up in their own imaginations.

Signs of this can be:

• Preference to play over reading.

• Difficulty engaging with text.

• Strong visual and artistic skills.

• Resistance to structured activities.

• Frequent storytelling.

• A need to question a prewritten story, often wanting to change the ending.

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By addressing the unique needs of highly imaginative and visual-minded children, these solutions can help bridge the gap between their creative strengths and reading engagement.

• Incorporate visual elements – books that have strong visual illustrations or that tell the story through illustrations.

• Interactive and multimedia books – eBooks and apps that incorporate animation, sound, and interactive features.

• Creative writing activities – These can take many forms. Children can write their own story, draw their story as a comic strip with small written captions or paint or draw an overall scene and write an accompanying sentence, paragraph, or story.

•  Integrate reading with play – This can be choosing books that have accompanying toys or props.

• Offer non-linear books – They are rarer to find, but choosing books that have varying endings or allow the reader to choose the outcome can appeal to highly imaginative children.

• Storytelling session – Sessions that allow children to share their own stories can be highly effective. Reading can then be incorporated by making it a mission to find a similar story.

Finally, and this is something that you can incorporate into all the above strategies, is there a topic or hobby that your reluctant reader is passionate about? If so, finding books that resonate with these topics or hobbies could be hugely beneficial. Introducing a reluctant reader to a book that resonates with them can transform their reading experience.

Call to Action

This week, if you feel your reluctant reader is highly imaginative or visually minded, try incorporating the strategies listed above that you feel would fit most with your child. I normally recommend introducing strategies one at a time but, in this case, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the approach. If you feel your reluctant reader would benefit from (and enjoy) shaking up their reading routine, then chatting through these strategies with your child and coming up with a plan they help to create, could be highly effective.

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