How to Help Your Child

How can I help my child develop reading fluency?

Ways to Practice Reading:

• Echo Reading (Parents reads a sentence and the child repeats
• Choral Reading (Parent and child read simultaneously)
• Re-reading Text (reading passages or books multiple times)

Types of Literature to Read:

• Songs
• Poems
• Just Right Books (on child's ability level)

What does it mean to reading with your child?

When your child's classroom teacher mentions reading with your child, what does that actually mean? Here are some quick guidelines:

1. Have your child read to you, not the other way around

• There are many benefits to reading aloud to your child, however this is a time for your child to practice their own skills. If you love reading to your child, you can share the reading by reading every other page.

2. When your child begins to struggle, avoid the urge to give them the word. Instead, support them in using their reading skills by saying:

• Let's try sounding out the first few letters
• What word would make sense?
• Are there parts of the word you know?
• Try a different vowel sound
• Let's skip the word and see if we can figure it out after finishing the sentence.

How can I help my child comprehend?

Comprehension is the primary purpose of reading. There are many ways to support your child when reading at home:

• Talk about your favorite part and why
• Ask about characters and character traits
• During important events, ask questions like "Why did it happen?" or "How might this change things?"
• When an older or wiser character shares something with the main character, talk about how that might be important

You can additionally read aloud to your child if you are working on comprehension. Listening to a reader and talking about the story builds confidence and allows the child to focus solely on the story.