Below is a list of ways you can support your child’s reading development at home. But also, these same tools will help you and your child excel at “Big School” reading and spelling homework.
Caution
- Don’t implement all of these strategies at once.
- Don’t expect your child to be able to do everything right away.
- Do implement when you feel your child is ready.
Read to your child
Enjoyment while reading is one of the single greatest predictors of reading success in school-age children. This is also a great bonding time and an opportunity to set a routine in which your child will thrive. Read to your child everyday!
Ask questions
This is a vital part of teaching your child to read. It allows them to think and reason, form opinions, make connections and ultimately develop good comprehension skills. It encourages your child to interact with the book. If your child is unable to comprehend what he or she is reading there is no value in reading at all, regardless of the fluency with which they can read.
Ask your child questions before, during, and after reading using the following approaches. Remember you don’t have to use all at once but can pick perhaps one or two each night.
Predicting
Ask questions before, during, and after reading the book. Show your child the cover of the book and ask him what he thinks it is going to be about, stop reading half way through and have your child predict the ending.
Inferring
While reading, ask him what he thinks is going to happen or why he thinks a character made a particular choice.
Connecting
If a character is depicting a strong emotion, identify that emotion and ask your child if he has ever felt that way.
Summarise
Afterwards, ask him to tell you what he remembered happening in the book.
Be a good reading example
Even if your child is fascinated with books from an early age, her fascination will quickly dwindle if she does not see reading modelled in her home.
Let your child see you reading. This gives them a sense of the importance and value reading will have on them right into adulthood. Children by nature want to mimic you. Even if you are not an avid reader, let your child see you read the newspaper, your bible, a cookbook, etc.
Identify letters in our environment
All the print we are surrounded by: labels, traffic signs, clothing, magazines, etc. Take advantage of the “teachable moments” as they come along! Look for letters while out and about and in the environment around you. Talk about the letters and the words depicted. Grocery stores are the best classrooms for reading (let’s not forget maths), have your child help you write a shopping list and refer to it at the shops, and find the items.
Incorporate your senses
Children learn best when multiple senses are included. Teach letter sounds and later words by incorporating as many of the five senses as possible. Utilise your child’s interests in discovering new ways to keep them enthusiastic and involved.
Some examples:
- Throwing beanbags/balls at letters and words when you call out the word/sound.
- Sound out words while jumping on a trampoline.
- “Write” letters and words using cookie dough (yum!)
- Stick glitter and petals, etc on the sheets of card
- Classify the genres of the books you read
- Fantasy (can’t happen in real life)
- Realistic Fiction (a made-up story, it could happen in real life)
- Nonfiction (facts about animals, places, people, etc)
- Alphabet Books
- Song Books
Read a variety of books and make a game out of guessing the genre. It encourages your child to refer to details in the story (good memory exercise). They then assess the information in order to categorise the book (great for thinking and reasoning skills).
Learning using “Word families”
Word families are words that rhyme. This helps children see patterns in reading. For example: A child who has learned how to spell “pat”, is going to find it easier to spell other “at” words, as only one letter is changing.
Decoding
Decoding is often referred to as “sounding it out.” Once your child knows the sound each letter makes, they are ready to begin putting words together. Encourage your child to sound out short words by clapping, etc.
Sight Words
These are the most common words in our written language (find a list look online for Dolch Lists). This forms a good starting block from which to build your child’s reading vocabulary/ word bank.
Some useful techniques:
- Choose one word when reading the bedtime story and have your child find that word throughout the book as you read.
- Practice writing them in a sandbox
- Make a poster with 3 or 4 at a time and ask your child to read you your bedtime story every night, when they are confidently reading them, select new words.
And Finally…
Don’t rush and don’t stress!
While it’s important to take advantage of the prime-learning time, it’s important to let your child be a child and most of all….
Have fun together!