The best way to increase beginning reading skills is to read to your child at least 15 minutes everyday. Discussing with your child how a fiction story is constructed (characters, time and place, story problem and solution) and a nonfiction story is constructed (titles, subtitles, facts, pictures, captions, charts) will tremendously aid in his/her ability to comprehend books. In addition, it exposes children to new words, builds vocabulary, and creates a sense of wonder. Create silly rhymes with vowel patterns and sounds, classify words and objects in multiple ways, compare and contrast things, etc. all help to build language skills which aid student ability to read.