How can I help my child...a) be a reader andb) enjoy reading? |
First of all, reading is more than reading words on a page. It’s about reading the world around us: making meaning of everything we see, hear, feel, touch, and taste. It’s about reading that facial expression, that symbol on the door, or the social cues that surround us. However, the list in this post does not address all ways to read. Instead, it will help you guide your child through a successful and positive path to reading text. Everyone is capable of helping children become readers!
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Note: This is a list of seven major ideas that are broken down into smaller parts. I encourage you to try and do them gradually. Do not overwhelm yourself with trying to do everything at once. Using these ideas will help your child (and their teacher) a lot!
1. Make reading enjoyable and part of your routine
- Positive perspective
- Believing that reading is good, fun, and interesting is half of the battle. If a child wants to read, the other steps will come much easier.
- Do NOT make reading a chore. Do NOT make reading a punishment. Reading should be enjoyable to your child.
- Environment
- Do you like reading a nice book while sitting at the kitchen table? Or, would you prefer to read it cuddled up on the couch? Pick a space that is comfortable to read. Our experience with reading extends beyond the page and our association with reading should be in a positive space for the reader.
- Allow choice
- Engaged readers are interested in the books they read. The more readers are exposed to words, the larger their vocabulary grows and the more comfortable they are in exploring books. Reading books that are interesting, and at an appropriate level, can help emergent readers become strong readers even when traditional barriers (poor nutrition, sleep, or exercise) may exist.
2. Model what a reader does
- Demonstrate how to read a book
- Don't assume that when your child sees a book they will know what to do with it. Modelling exactly what they need to do, and taking time to do this, is very important (e.g., Just because you have a measuring cup, it doesn't mean that you know how to bake). Break the process down. Show them how to hold the book, how to follow the words, where certain text features are, how to flip the pages from front to back, etc.
- Explain your thinking
- Are you using the pictures to give you a clue? Are you stretching the sounds out to figure out the word? Are you chunking sounds together? Are you going to guess what the word means because of the context? Will you come back to the word that you don’t know later? Does the word you read make sense?
- It is important to have dialogue about what you are explicitly doing while you read so that your child can see you are thinking about reading. For example, when reading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, encourage your child to find the image on the page that starts with /p/ (and then they point to the pig) and then work together to stretch out the sounds of the word p-iiiiiiii-g as you point to them. Demonstrating this tells the child that you had to work to become a good reader and that you still make mistakes as a reader but that is OK.
- Show them that reading is an important part of your life
- Monkey see, monkey do. Cozy up with a good book in front of them. Readers learn to see themselves as readers through similarities in the readers that they know. Interpreting the information around us, the things that happen in our environments, is one way children learn. They need to see you as a reader.
- Read out loud
- Developing your child’s ear to sounds, words, and sentences is crucial when they are beginning to read. Building their phonological awareness (ability to recognize that words are made up of sounds) will help them become more confident in what they are hearing while you read.
- Follow with your finger as you read out loud (if you are sitting directly with them)
- Your child will begin to see that words are associated with certain sounds, and certain sounds are associated with certain letters or letter combinations.
3. Have a variety of books easily accessible
On variety:
- Different kinds
- Let your child choose some (many) of the books. Bring them to the library or bookstore to choose them.
- Include fiction and non-fiction texts.
- Have some books with only pictures, some with pictures and words, and some with only words. Start with books like Chalk by Bill Thomson (book with no words), Don't Let the Pidgeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (pictures and words), or The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak (only words but a fun read for all ages).
- Different levels
- Include books with simple words, but also have increasingly harder books to read available. Emergent readers who love to read will challenge themselves when they are ready. More difficult books often also include a larger variety of words—these kinds of books are great for vocabulary growth!
- Different voices and faces
- What is the main subject or who are the main characters you are reading about? Introducing emergent readers to big ideas* is beneficial for the growth of the whole child. While Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss is a favourite (and rereading that book is a good idea), try to throw in a book like Donovan’s Big Day by Leslea Newman or Shi-Shi-etko by Nicola I. Campbell and see what discussions come out of those stories.
- All books should be at an arm's reach for your child
- Reading needs to be made convenient. The opportunity to explore books on their own time, with their own motivations, and at their own pace is important.
- If you want to cycle out your child's library that is okay but do not remove their favourites. Rereading our favourite books helps build up vocabulary, recognize important words, and make sense of other books we read. Plus, if it's their favourite they will want to read... so leave it on the shelf.
4. Don't make assumptions
- Don't assume that your child is reading wrong just because they figure out the words a different way or at a different pace
- Teaching reading has come a long way since you learned how to read and now educators know that children read using all sorts of strategies. You may have learned to read when Mrs. X taught you to sound out words, but your child may learn even quicker by using a variety of strategies. Google some of these strategies: Eagle Eye, Lips the Fish, Stretchy Snake, Chunky Monkey, Flippy the Dolphin, Skippy the Frog, and Tryin' Lion.
- Ask your child's teacher if you are worried about your child's reading and follow up with other support if needed
- If you do have concerns about you child's reading, ask their teacher or another reading expert about reading instruction to guide you through the correct process. Educators will let you know and suggest a referral to another professional if they believe that your child is experiencing some extra difficulty reading. For example, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Optometrists, and Audiologists are some of the people that educator's look to for help. There are so many ways to help your child read. Be open to new ideas, outside help, and new ways of making meaning. Sometimes all it takes is a trip to the eye doctor to fix a reading problem!
5. Be a cheerleader and a coach
- Whatever their reading may look like, encourage it and then expand it
- It is your job to make your child the most confident reader that you can (even if you think they're not the best... yet). Encouragement is key to working through the tough parts of reading (see my blurb on positive perspective above). When using encouraging words I challenge you to try using language such as "I noticed your hard work on sounding out that word" or "You sounded just like the character when you read that part!" instead of the common "Good job". Praise the process and hard work they are doing, not the product. This will encourage them to work hard at what they are doing instead just flying through a book to get it done.
- Coach them with positive corrections and affirmations
- Give helpful hints and model for them what you want them to do. Use positively framed language, telling them what to do instead of what not to do. Instead of saying "No, do it this way" or "That's not how you do it" and then becoming frustrated, provide a helpful hint, model the correction, and then move on. It's OK to skip some parts or ignore small mistakes as long as they don't become bad habits. For example, when a word your child pronounces is incorrect say: "Let's try that again and slow it down... (child tries)... Thank you for stretching out those sounds."
- Remember that we all want to feel successful when we do anything- reading isn't any different. Skip correcting small mistakes if it doesn't impact the meaning of what is being read. This can help readers feel more successful because not everything they do is nit-picked. (I know how frustrating it can be to hear c-aaaa-t sounded out slowly over and over and over again... but just breathe, they'll get better!)
6. Talk about reading
- Talk about the process
- Interrupt the story to give an explanation. What are you noticing while you read? How did you figure out that word?
- Talk about the content
- Discuss the main characters, their problems, the setting, and what the story means.
- Ask about other details such as colours, emotions, or things in the background.
- Stop in the middle of the story and ask them to predict what will happen next. Or if it is a familiar book, engage in a journey where you change the story or retell it in a new way.
- Talk about how it relates to real life
- Compare the story to your own life or other's. I like to ask: so what?
7. Make it authentic and inclusive
- Read words in context
- Where we find words should make sense. As a reader reads, "Does this make sense?" should constantly be going through their mind. For example, if you want them to read "cat" it should be accompanied with a picture, in a series of words that help the context, or perhaps in a series of similar sounding words so that patterns can be noticed. Just placing a word on a page in isolation may be extra difficult to read in the beginning.
- Read books with a purpose
- You can read books to learn something or purely for fun (both reasons are important!).
- Question the content in the book. Whose voices are heard and whose are missing? Whose faces do you see and whose are missing? Is the message of this book something that you want your child to learn?
- Use books as a stepping stone for hard conversations or big ideas*. Little people can handle big ideas and introducing them to such topics could help them with a harder conversation later on.
*Big ideas: discussing racism, gender, ability, class, mental health, etc. can happen with younger readers. Introduce these big ideas in small ways and through dialogue when they are first starting to read. This will help when they encounter these ideas themselves because they will have a starting point to formulate their own ideas. Teaching these types of big ideas helps to create more understanding and empathetic people. Don’t underestimate the power a good book can have on emergent readers.