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Reading to and with your child

Other than engaging in authentic play with your child, reading is the single best activity you can do with your child to support them in their learning. There are many ways of enhancing your time spent with your child and a book.

Reading to your child:

 

This is what most of us are most familiar with.  Mom or dad read a story while the child snuggles in and listens and looks at the pictures.  This is a great time to model what a good reader looks like for your child. Here are a few suggested ways of doing this:

 

1.  Comment on the front of the book.  "I wonder what this books is going to be about."  Make a prediction out loud so that your child can hear your thought process.  "There is a dog on a leash on the picture, maybe this is a story about a dog going on a walk."

 

2.  Point to the words as you read.  This helps your child associate those black squiggly things to the text of the story.  Moving your finger left to right and than a return sweap shows your child that print goes from left to right.

 

3.  Wonder outloud.  "I wonder why the boy did that." or "I wonder what he was feeling when that happened."  This encourages your child to make inferences and connect what is happening in the story to his/her personal experiences.

 

4.  Occasionally make mistakes and then attempt to fix them outloud.  "Oh, that did not sound right.  I am going to read that again."  "Oh, that did not look right. I said dog but the word starts with P.  Maybe the word is puppy."

Children need to know that even good readers make mistakes but they have strategies to fix them.

Reading with your child:

 

At a certain point, our children will want to take over some of the tasks associated with reading.  The reading thus becomes much more interactive.

 

1.  Have your child turn the pages.

 

2.  Have your child run his/her finger along the text while you read.

 

3.  Encourage your child to do some of the wondering that you have modelled while reading to your child.

 

4.  Have your child "read" words or letters that he/she may recognize.

 

5.  If the story is very samiliar, your child may want to "read" the story to you.  Yes, memorized story reading is "reading" at this age.  Yes, inventing a story to go with the pictures is "reading" too.  It is important that children see themselves as readers even before they start formal reading.  This confidence allows them to take risks and try reading even when it seems difficult.

 

6.  Play "I spy" in the book.  Have your child find letters or common words like "it", "on", "the".

 

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