Reading At Home: How Parents Can
Help
Dear Parents,
Children need a great deal of practice reading. Whenever someone learns something new, he or she needs to learn new techniques and then practice, practice, practice. At school, I spend time teaching your child reading skills and there is time to read, but not nearly enough. It would help tremendously if you would provide a time and place for your child to read at home. Enclosed are some suggestions about ways you can accomplish reading at home.
Read aloud
to your children.
Alternate
parents reading aloud with your children so both male and female models
are given.
Read and
write often for authentic purposes to serve as model to your
children.
Read a novel
to your children on long car trips or tape record books for them to listen
to during the ride.
Set up a
neighborhood Reading Circle where parent and children get together to read
and discuss their favorite books.
Encourage
your children to select books by interest and not necessarily by reading
level. Children who are interested in a particular topic may enjoy a
book on that subject that they might otherwise consider too easy or too
difficult.
Discuss
books with your children.
Encourage
your children to write a journal or diary from the perspective of the main
character in the book being read.
Have your
children make hand puppets and act our a book they have read.
Encourage
your children to explore answers to questions by using informational
books.
From Jerry L. Johns and Susan Davis Lenski, Improving Reading: A Handbook of Strategies [2nd ed.}. Copyright 1997 Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.