Helping Your Child To Read
Reading to your child
Sometimes your child may bring home a text that is too difficult for them to read independently, such as a picture book. This is a good opportunity for you to read the book to your child. Being read to is a vital part of children’s reading development. By reading to your child you are:
- modelling an enjoyment in reading
- demonstrating what a fluent reader sounds like - modelling expressive reading
These are skills that children can learn from hearing others.
Reading with your child
If the text is one that your child can read parts of, while some parts may be too difficult, this is an opportunity for you to read with your child. You may read parts of the text and allow your child to read parts. You may leave off the end of sentences for your child to read or encourage your child to read familiar words.
When reading with your child you are:
- creating an enjoyable shared reading experience
- supporting your child by helping when needed and joining in the experience with them
Reading by your child
Some texts will be easier for your child to read, and can be read by your child. If your child can read the text independently, this is an opportunity for you to take them a step further with discussion and “book talk”.
If the text can be read by your child, you can;
- Celebrate their achievement
- Encourage expression – How would that character’s voice sound? How could we read the exciting / scary / funny parts? - Discuss the content of the text
- What happened in the story?
- Where could we go to find some more information about that?
- What did you learn?
- Why do you think that character did that?
- Why do you think the author chose that title?
- How did the illustrations help the story?
The aim of home reading is practise and enjoyment.