A fun way to encourage reading at home is to have children read food labels and packaging. Though some kid-friendly cereal and snacks have games and quizzes imprinted in the packaging, you can encourage even more reading by having kids play a game to see how many ingredients each child can read on a label. This will help children learn to sound out words and hone reading skills when dealing with new and unknown words.
An activity that helps encourage and teach both reading and math concepts is to have children help you cook. Have kids read the recipe in its entirety before getting started and have kids use what they have read to gather all the supplies. Math comes into play when you have to measure appropriate quantities of ingredients. This combination activity brings both reading and math into the kitchen, keeping kids entertained while enhancing both skills.
Kids tend to want new toys, games, clothes and items -- even between traditional gift-giving seasons. To help teach children about money and math, have kids create toy wish lists to track how much money they need to earn or save to get what they want. Use toy catalogs or advertising inserts from newspapers to get started. Have the child cut out the picture of the toy and read to you the description of the toy. Tape the toy picture with the price on a piece of notebook paper. Have kids use subtraction to keep track of how much more money they need in order to buy the toy they want.
Reading can be enhanced by using the activity of story time to help kids strengthen their skills. Have older children read to younger siblings or to parents in the evenings just before bedtime. You can put a twist on a typical bedtime routine of reading to your child by having the child read to you. You can also use this method when taking car trips, riding on an airplane or even sitting in a waiting room.