Reading With Your Child: How to Get Results

Reading with mom or dad is an important way for children to learn. Here are some ideas
for enhancing your at-home reading sessions. 

Experts in child literacy are unanimous in their belief that parents should read with their
children. The power of the parent-child bond has a positive effect on a child's attitude
toward reading and his ability to read. Here are some suggestions to enhance the time you
spend reading with your child. 

Be a good role model. Let your child see you reading, and read aloud to him. Share your
excitement when you enjoy a great book of your own. 

Make it a ritual. Whether it's ten minutes every night before bed or an hour every Sunday
morning, it helps to set aside a specific time for reading together. This kind of special
"together time" can go a long way in getting your child interested in books. 

Make it cozy. Find a quiet comfortable place to listen to your children read. While you
don't need to put a lot of effort into the "surface" aspects of the reading activity, it doesn't hurt to ensure that even in a busy home, there's some quiet time for an activity like reading.

Make it silly. Unlike most adults, kids may not get excited at the idea of quiet time spent
curled up on the couch. Why not make it fun by turning reading sessions into impromptu
theater performances? Play around with funny voices to impersonate animals or unusual
characters in stories. You'll get to release some tension and your child will learn to think of
reading as fun rather than work. 

Work through the details. Reading is a thinking process, as well as a sounding out
process. When you're reading together, your approach in helping your child solve
problems can make a big difference. For example, when your child is stumped by a word,
here are some helpful prompts you can give: 

What word or idea would make sense in this part of the story? 
Use the picture to help you figure out what it could be. 
Skip past that word and read to the end of the sentence. Now what do you think
that word is? 
You read that word before on another page. See if you can find it. 
Supply the word if they still have difficulty. 
After your child has read the story, reread it aloud yourself, so that he can enjoy
the story without interruption. 

Encourage favorites. Rereading favorite stories again and again will enable your child to
become a more fluent reader. Also, be sure to share some of the timeless books you loved
most when you were a child. 

By GreatSchools Staff 

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION

You know your child best. Ultimately, only you and your child can determine which books are
appropriate to read, taking a variety of important factors into consideration. These factors
include: your child's particular interests, independent reading ability, motivation, and level of maturity. Please consider each of these factors as you attempt to match an individual child with a specific book. The reading lists provide information only on the books. You then must take that information into account with what you know about your own child in order to make the most appropriate reading selections. Also, you should not limit a student's reading selections to the titles from his/her designated list. The California Reading List provides only one source of potential titles. Many other lists, including collections of award-winning titles (Newbery, Caldecott, California Young Reader Medal, Coretta Scott King, etc.), can be found through school and local libraries, the Internet, and other helpful sources. The bottom line is:
ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILD TO READ.

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