Read to Grow and Grow to Read

Read to Grow and Grow to Read       

How to Read with Your Child

6 Ways to Read Better Together for Better Results

 Posted by Jennifer Benoit

Reading is foundational to the academic success of your child…plus it can be great fun!  Introducing your young child to reading is giving them the gift of adventure, mystery, and excitement.  This series is designed to help your young reader flourish in his reading ability.  Read on!

 

Reading to your child is potentially one of the most life changing things you can do for you and for your child.  It creates a bond and gives you time to explore new worlds together.  Often, I see that parents don’t know how to read together with their child and it becomes boring and stale.  Here are some ways to perk up your reading time and add more value to books you choose.

 

1.  Trade off on reading pages – when you read with your child it is just as important to read to them as it is to have them read to you.  They need to hear how you read smoothly, pause, give different voices to characters, etc. 

If you have more than one child reading with you, all of you take turns.  For those readers that have a tough time already, it is a chance to relax and just listen rather than struggle.  I always recommend to parents having you read one page and your child read the next…even if one of your pages only has one word…that’s the fun!  This is also great with chapter books.  Don’t forget that children enjoy being read to at many ages…don’t we? 

 

2.  Finding clues in pictures – Many books (even chapter books) have pictures.  Talk about the pictures, the illustrations and find clues that may lead you to believe what will happen on that page.  Discuss who each character or item is and talk through the pictures before or after the page is done.  One of my all time favorites is Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go where you read the story, but also find the Goldbug character on each page.  Such fun!  Many books have little character on each page and it makes reading fun!

 

3.  Explaining Vocabulary – Oftentimes we assume that children know the vocabulary.  For example if you didn’t know that a chapter book was a book with chapters, the last reading tip would not have made complete sense.  Ask your children what the words mean and even have them act out the action words in the story.  Stop every now and then and ask them what happened on the page so you know they understood the words.  Then ask if they can think of another sentence to use the word in.  That shows they really understand the word!

 

4.  Comparing Books -  It’s great to compare the books you read.  Does Harry Potter have anything in common with Frodo from Lord of the Rings?  Do you see some similarities or differences between the same character in different books?  Which character are you most like and why?  Do books by the same author start and end the same way?  Is the movie different from the book?  Which is better and why?  Comparing is a math and reading skill, so any way you can use to compare books and ideas are great.

 

5.  Making predictions – Making predictions is a big part of reading.  Children always want to know “what’s going to happen next!”  By predicting what you think what Curious George might be curious about, you encourage the skill of using the knowledge you already have to make a good guess about what may happen next?  You can also problem solve or create different scenarios.  Could George have solved the problem a different way?  What if George’s plan didn’t work?  What do you think he would do next?  If the author were to write the next book in this series, what would happen in that book?  Lots of different ways to look at the same story and predict at different levels.

 

6.  Losing last word of rhyme – One of my most favorite things to do with my own child and classes is to lose the last word of the sentence or rhyme.  Amelia Bedelia drew the bath with her…. As the child reads or looks at the picture, he can see that it is with her paints.  It keeps the child engaged and interested even when you are reading and it sharpens those predictions skills they use when looking at the pictures.  It also helps younger children with rhyming.  Look at this example from Dr. Seuss’ One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

By the light of the moon,

By the light of a star,

They walked all night

From near to …..

 

Not only is this a rhyme, but the near to far piece on the end are opposites.  This is a great way to talk about what opposites are for a few seconds as an add on to that page.  You don’t need to do it every time, but it keeps it interesting to pop these in every once in a while.