Holiday Books that can Motivate Kids to Read and Comprehend

In this article, we share a few holiday books kids can enjoy during the winter season. This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. Integrated Learning Strategies (ILS) is a learning and academic center. As a reminder, ILS is not a health care provider and none of our materials or services provide a diagnosis or treatment of a specific condition or learning challenge you may see in your child or student. If you seek a diagnosis or treatment for your child or student, please contact a trained professional who can provide an evaluation of the child.

During the holiday season, many parents ask us about fun holiday books that will spark a child’s desire to read. The holidays provide great opportunities to introduce new books and stories. Books can help improve a child’s curiosity of letters, words and vocabulary. Not to mention, books are great for strengthening reading comprehension and imagination. 

There are so many fun books available to spark your child’s excitement about the holidays with fun topics that range from Santa and reindeer, to snowflakes, and classics all of us love.

This holiday season, we wanted to include a few of our favorites that many people don’t often hear about. Many of them have heartwarming messages and help kids understand the true meaning behind the holiday season.

Tips for Reading

To get you started, here are a few tips and tricks when introducing new books to a child’s routine.

Sight Words

As you all know, there are many words your kids will just have to memorize that can’t be decoded. If your child or students are struggling with sight words or has Dyslexia, place several of the sight words you see here around your home. For example, put sight words by the clock, tape them to doors, or put them by their nightstand and drawers. Every time your child passes by the items that have a sight word attached to it, have them recite the word. This will help them remember the word and recognize it when they see it in the books they read. Remember to switch up the words often so they are learning new ones each week.

Stop and Return

While you are reading some of these fun holiday books, if you notice your child adding letters and sounds that aren’t in the words they read, pause before continuing. Even though this may be frustrating to the child, stopping them and returning back to the word gives them a second glance at the word they missed. Help them sound out the word or ask them to say it again. You may need to cover up all the other words on the page and help them focus only on the word they missed.

Slow down

Kids today are reading too fast. Parents and teachers need to encourage children to slow down when they read. Because children are now being “trained” to read as fast as possible, it creates more problems. Many kids now skip words, guess, or say the wrong words entirely. In addition, it is creating even more problems with their comprehension. If the child is prone to speed-reading, ask them to slow down and help them read the words more carefully. You will also want to ask them several open-ended questions at the end of the story. This way, you can see how strong their comprehension is as they read the story. Ask them open ended questions and questions specific to the story.

What to watch for when Reading

You may find that your child or students struggle with reading retention. Even though they have seen the word hundreds of times, they may still add letters or sounds to the word, or they may leave sounds and letters out of the word. You may also notice they are constantly guessing at words they should be familiar with at home and at school. If this is the case, they may struggle with auditory issues. This means that even though they have seen the words hundreds of times, they can’t retain the information they read. It’s like it has gone in one ear and out the other. This isn’t always an issue that you can improve with more tutoring or practice at home. They may need more intervention from a professional to help them build their auditory skills.

Our Favorite Holiday Books

Now for the fun part. We hope you will enjoy this holiday book list and the many others out there that will inspire your children to develop a love for reading. Even if they are too young or are struggling with learning challenges, reading holiday books to your children can still get them excited about reading.

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Integrated Learning Strategies is a Utah-based center dedicated to helping mainstream children and children with learning challenges achieve academic success. Our services provide kids with non-traditional tutoring programs within the Davis County, Kaysville, Layton, Syracuse, Farmington, and Centerville areas. Areas to find Integrated Learning Strategies include: Reading tutors in Kaysville, Math tutors in Kaysville, Common Core Tutors in Kaysville, Tutors in Utah, Utah Tutoring Programs