• Be a role model. Demonstrate that reading is important in your life. Read the newspaper, books and magazines, e-mail and information on the Internet. Let your child see you reading.
• Read to your child. Share articles from the newspaper or from magazines. Look particularly for items of interest to your child - those that have to do with his school, his favorite sports team, movie star or band, or a special hobby. Talk about what you read with your child.
• Make your home reflect the importance of reading. Give adolescents plenty of opportunities to read. Keep books around - you don't have to own them all; library books work just as well - and read them. Ask your son to read you the measurements and ingredients from your recipe card as you prepare dinner. Ask your daughter to look up a phone number in the phone book for you or ask her to look at the cereal box and tell you how much sodium is in the cereal your family eats for breakfast.
• Allow your adolescent to choose what she wants to read (within reason, of course). Everyone's interests are different and if you want your child to read, let her read what she wants to read - reading teen idol, fashion and hair style magazines can lead to reading biographies or the style section of the newspaper.
• Using a computer can provide both incentive and opportunities for adolescents to read. From looking up interesting facts about a new movie coming out, to researching for a school report, the Internet is a tremendous (and fun) resource for adolescents. There are many computer games that require and even foster reading ability. (Parents, of course, may want to monitor the materials available to their adolescent child on the computer.) See the tip sheet on "Using Computers to Improve Reading Skills for Adolescents."

Written by the National Center for Family Literacy.