Read a picture book aloud, but do the absolute worst, most ridiculous voices you can manage. Squeaky villain. Grumpy narrator. Every character sounds like they have a cold. The goal isn't a good performance — it's making reading so silly that your kid is laughing too hard to remember they're supposed to think reading is boring.

This works especially well for the 5-9 age range, where kids are old enough to appreciate absurdity but young enough to think their parent being ridiculous is the funniest thing that has ever happened. It also works for reluctant teenagers, though they'll pretend they're above it while secretly loving every second.

The sneaky benefit: when you do voices (even terrible ones), you're modeling expressive reading. Kids who hear exaggerated intonation develop better reading fluency because they learn that text has personality. You're teaching prosody. They think you're being an idiot. Everyone wins.