What can YOU do at home?

Be Supportive

• Let your child’s interests guide you
• Praise their approximations and attempts

Be Positive

• Focus on what your child does correctly
• Praise any attempt that shows good reasoning, even if the outcome is incorrect

Be Meaning- Oriented

• DO NOT COVER THE PICTURES!
• Read to and with your child
• Introduce the story
• Read predictable books, poetry and folktales
• Read and reread their favorites

Be a good model

• Model the joy and usefulness of reading
• Discuss interesting or new words and their meanings
• Reread to clarify a word or idea
• Sound expressive and fluent when reading to your child

Be Strategic

• Prompt for strategies
• Instead of immediately giving the difficult word you could ask: “ What would make sense there?”, “What would sound right?”, or “Does that look right?”
• Resist the temptation to tell them if they are right. Instead ask them “Are you right?”
• Allow them time to figure it out for themselves

Be Helpful

• Encourage your child to read books that are at a comfortable level for reading does not improve when the books are at frustration level
• Ask questions to clarify his thinking “How did you know that?”

Above all:

• Be Subtle
• Be Supportive
• Be Sensitive