Tips For Reading To Your Child
- Read to your child every night. Bed time is always a great time
to read to your child. I suggest a book with chapters. That
way you can read at least 1 chapter per night.
- For beginning readers, drag your finger across the words while
you read. That way they can distinguish that you are reading
from left to right, that the words have meaning, and they also
might pick up a word that they see often, such as the word
"the".
- If you come to a difficult word, ask your child if he/she knows
what that word means. If the child responds with a no, try the
best that you can to explain the meaning of that word.
- After you are finished reading the book or chapter, ask your
child questions about what you just read. Talk about things that
just happened, what has already happened, and what you think
might happen. This will help you know that your child is
understanding what is going on in the book, and will also let
your child's imagination flourish, thinking of what might happen
next. It will also be exciting to find out if he/she is right.
Tips To Help With Your Child's Reading
- To be able to begin reading, your child should be able to
recognize the alphabet letters, know the sounds of the alphabet,
and also recognize and sound out combination sounds such as:
TH, ING, CH and so on. We provide programs that will help your
child to be able to do this. These programs are a great
reinforcement to have, along with school curriculum. You might
want to check out
Letters and Numbers,
Phonics 1a,
Phonics 1b, and
Phonics 2a,
depending on what level your child is at.
- Buy some books that are at your child's current reading level.
If you're not sure, ask your child's teacher. (Your child should
bring home books from school to read as homework. If not, find
out why.)
- Have your child point to the words as he/she reads along. More
advanced readers will not need to do this.
- If your child gets stuck on a word, have them try to sound it
out by themselves first. If you can, break the word into
sections. Have each section broken down into a combination sound.
For example:
- TH-ERE
- CH-IL-DR-EN
- REA-D-ING
Notice how the TH sound is separated from the
ERE. Your child should be able to say each
sound separately, and then say it together.