Reading with your Little One!

Reading

Encouraging your child to read books stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world. It helps them develop language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written word.

Here are some helpful tips when reading together that I myself use when teaching reading!

Tips for Reading

    • Let your child help you choose a book you would like to read together.
    • Find a comfortable place for you to read and sit together.
    • Do things that will make reading a book more entertaining to your child – and to you.  You can use different tones of voice for different situations, choose different voices for characters, and so on.  It is not just what you are reading that matters, but also how you read it.
    • You may tell the story in your own words if the words on the book is too complex for your child, and you don’t want him to lose interest.
    • Give your child time to make the most out of every page of the book.  Encourage him to look at the pictures, point out objects, repeat words, and talk about the story.
    • Ask questions like “Who did that?”, “What is she doing?”, “What is that called?”.   Also, to keep your child involved in the story, do not read straight through.  Ask questions like “Why do you think it happened?” and “What do you think will happen next?”
    • After reading a book, take time to ask your child question about what he liked or didn’t like about the story. Discussing pictures and ideas in the book helps your child understand.
    • To build your child’s vocabulary, ask him/her about where an object is in the book.  Praise him/her every time he/she points or names an object.
    • Choose books that tell a story with a lot of repetition and have the same words appearing over and over.

 

  • Spend a lot of time talking about illustrations on the book. Reading pictures is how children begin to read text.
  • If you have more than one child, read to each child separately,
  • especially if they’re more than 2 years apart.  Reading to children with different ages together is also a good practice.
  • Remember to take your child to the library regularly.