Tips for Reading With Your Kids
We all know reading with your children is important. The benefits are huge! Reading with your children builds skills crucial for school success, helps your child grow their vocabulary, and is a great opportunity to build their empathy as they relate to the characters in stories. Yet, studies show less and less parents are reading to their children. Other parents end up in power struggles trying to get their children to read at home. It doesn’t have to be difficult to incorporate reading into your routine!
Here are some tips to increase reading in the home:
- Reading doesn’t always have to happen at bedtime! Any time you can fit in a snuggle with a book it is a win!
- When you are reading with your child, track your finger under the word you are reading. This helps your child understand that reading happens from left to right.
- As your child begins to read independently, you want to find good fit books. A good fit book is a book that your child can read 9/10 words they encounter. Any more difficult and they may get frustrated.
- Phonics books that include word families are always a wonderful choice. Try to avoid books that include large words that break rules and rely on pictures to fill in the gaps. These rule breaker words often confuse new readers.
- You do not need to make your child read out loud to you. Most children hate doing this. A better way to check for understanding is ask questions about what they are reading. This will lead to increased comprehension skills as well.
- Make sure they are enjoying the books they have access to. If they don’t like it, don’t make them finish it. Reading should be fun, and a big part of that is finding material they enjoy!
Parenting is tough, everyone is doing their best. Just remember that any reading you do
with your child is helping them learn & grow as people.
