Helping Your Child with Reading

Helping Your Child With Reading

When you open a book with your child, you are opening the world for your child.

By reading aloud to your child, you are helping your child become a better reader, listener and overall a better student. You are helping your child build vocabulary skills and gain knowledge about the world. When you read aloud you are teaching that reading is important.

“Children learn to read by reading” (K. Goodman, What’s Whole in Whole Language? Portsmouth Nit: Heinemann, 1986.) Parents become partners in your child’s growth as a reader. Research shows that families play an important role in a child’s reading success.

Reading With Your Child

Read With your child EVERYDAY

·  Plan for a short, pleasant session (not more than 20 minutes for emergent to beginning readers, 30 minutes for developing readers)

·  Pick a quiet time and a special place.

·  Talk about the story

·  Vary the way in which you spend this time:

- You can read the story first and then take turns – you read a page, your

Child reads a page

- Paired reading – reading in unison with two copies of the book

- You may each choose to read your own book and share it with each other

- Your child may read into a recording machine, etc.

·  There should be as little interruption in the train of thought or story-line as possible

·  Let your child use whatever skills he/she has to figure out the word. Remember the meaning is the important thing. Guessing is good. Encourage a sensible guess. Children usually can “get” the word from the context of the story. Prompt with clues about the meaning of the story. Ask your child to read on to the end of the sentence. Finally encourage your child to ask for the word.

·  Encourage ….. Encourage….. Encourage!!!!

·  Praise …. Praise ….. Praise!!!!!

- Encourage/Praise when your child is reading fluently, self-correcting and continuing to read after a pause or prompt. Remember – do not be critical.

·  80% of the text that your child reads should be at a “just right” level. Encourage your child to read a “just right” book more than once. Re-reading “just right” text is the biggest most single effective strategy for increasing one’s fluency.

·  If your child becomes frustrated, stop and do something else.

·  Encourage your child to read aloud to younger brothers, sisters, cousins, or family friends.

·  For the days that time is an issue take books everywhere (the car, bus, doctor’s office) and read everyday items aloud such as food labels, menus, cereal boxes, road signs, newspapers, magazines etc.

If you are interested in more ideas about reading with your child, visit the Reading Is Fundamental website at www.rif.org