How to Get Your Child to Love Reading With Free Bedtime Stories

*This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.*

*This is a sponsored post

As homeschool parents I think most of us would agree that a really important desire for us is that our children have a love of books and reading.

However, in the early years especially you may find yourself wondering how to foster that love when your child is either not yet old enough to read or they don’t actually want to yet.

I’m so pleased to be able to to share with you a wonderful resource for parents who desire to make reading an enjoyable and exciting experience with their kids.

StoryTykes offers free bedtime stories and anyone can sign up for them.

We’ve been reading them to our kids for a while now and I’ll be sharing my thoughts down below along with the best tips I’ve found for engaging my kids in reading.

little girl reading free bedtime stories

How to Use Bedtime Stories to Foster a Love of Books

Before your child can learn to read they must be read to. Whether you homeschool or not it is very common for reading to begin at bedtime.

There’s just something about having a freshly bathed kiddo wrapped up in cozy jammies curled up in your lap.

The chaos of the day calms for a moment and you can get lost together in an engaging story.

When I think about how I want my children to associate the thought of reading and books, it is with those kinds of feelings.

The feeling of being safe, secure, and loved.

The feeling of calm in the chaos and peace at the end of a long day.

Below I’m going to talk about how we’ve been able to use bedtime stories to foster a love for books and reading in our kids and how you can replicate the results.

#1 Get Free Bedtime Stories for Kids!

I’m a sucker for good old ink on paper when it comes to the choice between ebooks and hardcopy, but the reality is that there can be limitations on that.

Not everyone has the space to store oodles of books and then there’s also the issue of money.

Books are expensive and for many families it just isn’t an option to always be investing in them.

That is why I absolutely LOVE what is the reality of Story Tyke.

You see, they offer completely free bedtime stories sent straight to your inbox 5 nights per week.

You sign up to their mailing list and that’s it.

There’s no catch. It is a free service and they offer a variety of fun and engaging stories for kids.

I’m a skeptic and a bit of a book snob so I promise that this is worth your time.

Click over and see what free bedtime stories for kids you can get from StoryTyke.

I’ve really enjoyed that the stories arrive at 6 PM Sun-Thurs. Our kids go to bed at 7 PM so it is perfect timing in that regard.

I’ve also found the story length to be just right. My kids are 5, 4, and 2 so they don’t have incredibly long attention spans.

The stories are long enough to have a solid storyline but not so long that my kids lose interest.

Overall, I love how accessible it makes reading to my kids and if we skip a night then I can just save the email for another time.

This is also really useful if you travel somewhere and don’t wish to bring books with you. If you have your phone/computer/ipad, you’re set to go!

So, you have nothing to lose! Sign up for free bedtime stories over at StoryTyke.com

#2 Make it Fun

Of course, having access to books isn’t necessarily enough to make it a pleasant experience.

We all know that it can be easy to lose interest when the narrator is dry and boring to listen to.

Make bedtime stories fun by engaging with your children, using inflection, and perhaps even making up funny voices for the characters.

You know your kids best so do what works for your family.

I did really appreciate that Story Tyke gives helpful hints relating to this within their emails.

#3 Do it Consistently

Children thrive on routine and consistency. Frequent exposure to books and reading in the right environment will benefit your child so much.

I’ve found from personal experience that the more I read to my kids the more they ask for it.

Getting them to sit and listen to stories becomes a lot less challenging when they’re used to doing it on a regular basis.

Don’t be despondent if they don’t want to sit still at first. Be consistent and you’ll find that they do better over time.

#4 Give Your Child Choices

There is no such thing as a kid who hates reading. There are kids who love reading and kids who are reading the wrong books.
James Patterson

We’ve all been there. You pick up a book only to put it down again on your nightstand where it sits long enough to get a good covering of dust on it.

Even if it comes highly recommended, sometimes you just don’t enjoy a book or find yourself captivated by the storyline.

When our children are at the beginning stages of reading or perhaps have been pushed and prodded to the point of loathing it, it is immensely important to provide them with a variety of stories to choose from.

Give them choices.

You don’t have to offer stories that you don’t think are great choices, but do offer a variety of different books that you think will be of interest to them.

If your child has an amount of choice in the matter it will give them more of a desire to follow through.

We want reading to be a positive experience and they way we do that is by letting those experiences happen over and over again.

#5 Add to Your Library

Buying books is something that I really struggle to say no to, however they can be pricey.

One of my best tips for stocking up your home library is to visit thrift stores.

I have found so many great books tucked in bookshelves in little corner stores.

It means that my children can now go to our bookshelf and choose from a plethora of stories to read.

We have a couple of armchairs next to our bookshelf that are big enough to fit several kids on my lap. It makes for the perfect place to snuggle up together and get lost in a story.

This is also the spot where I read our bedtime stories from Story Tyke and they always beg for more.