Welcome to the 2024-2025 School Year
How can parents/guardians help their child at home?
Read aloud with your child. Read to them, have them read to you, have them read to younger siblings, especially younger children/babies. It doesn’t matter what they read, books, newspaper, magazine articles or sports pages.
Why?
Students who read silently tend to skip words they are not familiar with. If children read out loud, they will sound out words and if they don’t the listener (parent/guardian) will know the passage they are reading doesn’t make sense.
Students who read out loud build their public speaking skills. We know our kids can yell upstairs/ down stairs with the best of them, but when they are not confident in their reading, they clam right up. We want them to be confident in their speaking ability.
Many of our students are fluent readers, meaning they can sound out the words beautifully, but quite a few struggle with the comprehension of what they read. When students read out loud, we as listeners can then ask questions at the end of a paragraph, or page. Conversations about what students read help them to recall information from the passages. This will also help build the skill of “thinking” about what they are reading.
While teachers would love to find the time to read for 15-20 minutes each week with each student, most have over 100 students and time is just a challenge. Having your child read out loud to you at home can help discover any reading or comprehension issues. Email their teacher with questions/concerns. We can work to solve any issues, the sooner, the better.