Tips & Advices on Child Development

Reading With Your Child: 9 Ways to Get Results

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 her ability to read. The suggestions below will help you learn how to make reading with your child both a pleasure and a learning experience.

1. Work through unfamiliar words. Reading is a thinking process, as well as a sounding out process. When you're reading together, some simple strategies can help your child understand unfamiliar words and solve reading problems.

2. Use "sound" strategies to tackle a new word.

• Ask your child to "sound out" an unknown word. Look at the letters in a difficult word and have your child pronounce each sound or "phoneme." Then see if she can blend the sounds together to pronounce the word.
• Help her memorize irregular words. Explain that words like "where," "hour" or "sign" are hard to sound out since they don't follow normal sound patterns. Point these words out when you're reading to help your child learn to recognize them on her own.
• Use suffixes, prefixes, and root words. If your child knows the word "day," guide her to define new words like "yesterday" or "daily." Similarly, if she knows what "pre" means, it's easy to learn new words like "prepare" or "preschool."

3. Use the story to help your child learn.

• Ask your child what word or idea would make sense in the plot of the story when she gets stuck on an unfamiliar word.
• Encourage your child to look at illustrations, pictures, titles or graphs to figure out the meaning of new words.

4. Give support and encouragement.

• Challenge your child to figure out new words, but always supply the word before she becomes frustrated.
• After your child has read a story, reread it aloud yourself, so that she can enjoy it without interruption.

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

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

7. Create the right atmosphere. Find a quiet, comfortable place to listen to your children read. While you don't need to build a special reading nook, it helps to ensure that even in a busy home, there's a quiet place for reading.

8. Make reading fun. 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.

9. Introduce new books. Each year there is one book that seems to steal the hearts and minds of all children. While it may seem it's the only book your child wants to read, it's important to remember that there are millions of books that will suit your child's interests and capture her imagination.

To learn more and get up-to-date performance results for your child's school, visit GreatSchools.net. GreatSchools is a nonprofit organization that helps parents choose schools, support their children's learning and advocate for academic excellence.