Literacy At Home

One question I've heard a lot is what can my child read at home? It can be challenging to support your beginning reader when most picture books are still at a kindergartener's frustration level. Here are some ideas to help you provide a literacy-rich environment in your home. 

• Read allowed to your child every day! Picture books, magazines, websites, grocery lists, chapter books, and signs - anything! Seeing the purpose of learning to read is critical, as is being immersed in a text-filled household. 

• Allow your child see you reading and point it out. Tell them what types of books you like to read and why, explain how you need to read a recipe to get Grandma's bread just right, discuss how it's important to read the descriptions on Amazon before selecting a toy, etc. As always, your child wants to be just like you, so show them the reading behaviors you hope they develop. 

• Discuss books you read together. Ask your child what they think will happen next, how may the book have ended differently, what lessons they learned, how they would describe a character, or what they think a new word may mean given the context of the story. 

• Allow your child to "read" to you old favorites. All children have a few books that they've read so often that they have it memorized. Let them read it to you and celebrate their reading. This is not a time to point out that they didn't really read the book.

• Have them tell you the story based on the illustrations. No, it won't match the text, but I bet they'll be pretty close! Again, this is a great opportunity to praise their reading. Reading the illustrations will be an assistive tool as they begin reading books and get stuck on words. It also builds their comprehension. Wordless picture books are fantastic, too!

• Allow your child to hunt for trick words, capital or lowercase letters, or ending punctuation. Read collaboratively and let them read the words they know.

• Read books that follow a pattern. Once they know the pattern, they'll be able to read the story with ease and be overjoyed with their success. You can read authentic children's literature , or search for books especially made for beginning readers. These books are Guided Reading Level (GRA) level A-C or higher. Our Scholastic Book Club books sometimes list book reading levels, or you can Google it. Amazon has inexpensive high-interest sets for leveled readers if you search!

• When your child is decoding words, check out some of the beginning reading books below (GRA levels D-F).