Tips on How to Support Your Child With Literacy At Home

Talk to your child (a lot)

• Reading is a language activity, and if you want to learn a language, you need to hear it and speak it. Exposing your child to a variety of words helps with the development of literacy skills.

Read to your kids

• Reading a book or story to a child is a great, easy way to advance literacy skills. Reading to kids exposes them to richer vocabulary than they usually hear from the adults who speak to them, and can have positive impacts on their language, intelligence, and later literacy achievement.

Have them tell you a “story”

• One great way to introduce kids to literacy is to take their dictation. Have them recount an experience or make up a story. Write the story as it is being told, and then read it aloud. Point at the words when you read them, or point at them when your child is trying to read the story. Over time, with lots of rereading, your child will start to recognize words such as “I” or “like.”

Teach phonemic awareness

• Young children don’t hear the sounds within words. To become readers, they have to learn to hear these sounds (or phonemes). Play language games with your child. For instance, say a word, perhaps their name, and then change it by one phoneme: Jen-Pen, Jen-Hen, Jen-Men. Or, just break a word apart: chair… ch-ch-ch-air.

Teach phonics (letter names and their sounds)

• You can’t sound out words or write them without knowing the letter sounds. Teach the sounds that letter makes.

Listen to your child read

• If it sounds choppy or there are mistakes, have them read it again. Or read it to them, and have them try it again. Repeated oral reading makes students better readers.

Promote writing

• Literacy involves reading and writing. Having books and magazines available for your child is a good idea, but it’s also helpful to have pencils, crayons, markers, and paper. Encourage your child to write. One way to do this is to write notes or short letters to them. It won’t be long before your child is trying to write back to you.

Ask questions

• When your child reads, get them to retell the story or information. If it is a story, ask who it was about and what happened. If it is an informational text, have your child explain what it was about and how it worked. Reading involves not just sounding out words, but thinking about and remembering ideas and events. Improving reading comprehension skills early will prepare for subsequent success in more difficult texts.

Make reading a regular activity in your home.

• Make reading a part of your daily life, set time aside for reading, and kids will learn to love it!