Helping your child learn to read can seem like an overwhelming task. Here are a few ideas to use at home - to keep you both happy!
~ Read to your child. Favourite story books, read over and over, help attune your child's ears to the sounds of fluent, expressive reading.
~ Read in front of your child. It's important for children to see their parents reading, for work or for pleasure, to know that reading is a vital part of a rich life.
~ Read with your child. When your child brings home a book from school, it should be at a "just right" level. If the book is too difficult, he can become overwhelmed and might give up. If it's too easy, the book might become boring.
~ If your child gets stuck when reading, try one of these prompts:
1. What might that word be? What makes sense?
2. Look at the picture. Does it help you?
3. What's the first letter? Can you sound it out?
4. Can you find a small word inside?
5. Let's skip that work and read on. Now do you have an idea? Let's go back and try it.
~ If your child makes a mistake, encourage her to ask herself, "Does that make sense?" Often children will fix mistakes quickly (self-correction).
~ If your child substitutes an incorrect word that makes sense (text: Mom cleans the car. Child: Mom washes the car.), point to the word on the page and ask, "Does that look right?"
~ Encourage your child to read at an appropriate speed. If he reads too slowly, word by word, he may lose the meaning of the text on the page. It's a lot harder to correct mistakes once meaning is lost.
~ Encourage your child to read with expression, paying attention to punctuation. This also helps with fluency.
~ Always ask your child to retell the story or restate the facts after reading. If she is accurately reading the words (decoding) but not understanding what she's reading (comprehension), the text may be too difficult. Retell is a most important step with reading.
~ Encourage your child to make connections to his reading. After reading a story, ask him, "What does this book make you think about?" or "What do you wonder about...?" By making connections to his life, his experiences, his knowledge, child's understanding deepens.