Information
for Teachers and Parents...
Helping
Your Children at Home with Reading
To help your
child at home with reading, check with your family doctor, school nurse,
or health counselor to make sure he hears and sees correctly. It's important
to make sure the primary organs for reading are healthy.If you, the
parent, feel pressured and anxious about your child's reading, he'll feel
it, too. If learning to read becomes a daily chore and punishment and
nothing more than a mechanical activity that involves correctly pronouncing
words, you'll quickly turn your child off to reading.Let your
child know that you treasure learningand that you enjoy it. Let
him see you with a book or magazine in your hands. You are your child's
closest "model." If reading has value for you, it will undoubtedly
have value for him, too.Here are
some suggestions that parents have found to be of great assistance:
 |
Read
to your child every day. You know what he likes, his hobbies,
his interests. Find books that describe these and use them. Reading
to children allows them to develop their imaginations, an important
but often overlooked aspect of reading. |
 |
Read
with your child. If he has a reader from school or from the library,
sit next to him, and both of you read aloud. Use your finger as a
guide, pointing under each word as both of you read it together. About
10 minutes of this a day is adequate. |
 |
Talk
with your child. Ask him about things that happened at school
or on a Saturday afternoon. Let him know that words describe and take
the place of doing. |
 |
If
you see something interesting in the newspaper, particularly with
a photograph, talk about it in such a way that your child might want
to look at it and try to read some of the words himselfand perhaps
ask, "What's this word?" |
 |
Comic
strips give children an understanding that a series of events
are sequentially occuring. For younger children, those from the Sunday
papers can be clipped apart so that your child can rearrange them
into their correct sequence. |
 |
Leave
messages for your childsimple ones that you think he can
figure out. "Went next door. Be right back." |
 |
Concentration
is a game children likeif it doesn't become too challenging.
Select words that are confusing for your child. Make flash cards.
Start with two or three words. First make sure he can pronounce each
one. Then turn them over. Point to one word. Can your child name it
before he turns it over? If he gets all three, try four (the same
three plus a new one) next time. |
 |
Many
younger children are confused with words and letters because they
really don't know left and right on their own body. There are dozens
of games that can be made up to develop left and right understanding:
twirl your right hand; hop on your left foot; toss the ball with your
left handnow your right; turn to your left, et cetera. Care
must be taken with these activities. If you go too fast and expect
your child to learn left and right in one day, he'll be frustrated,
and, like many children, will depend on which arm he wears his watch. |
 |
Catalogs,
want ads, grocery listsall provide ways for children to
get practice in practical reading. Have them available so your child
can use them to find out what things cost, and how to get them. |
 |
Cooking
and building things. Both require following a sequence of directions.
Let your child decide on baking cookies or building a birdhouseand
then be available to assistnot do it for him. |
 |
Games
that require the use of rhyming words are an excellent way to
develop some of the auditory skills necessary for reading. Play short
"word games" in which you see whether you or your child
can make a series of rhyming words (sense or nonsense) based on a
starting word. (Sticking with one syllable words makes it far less
complicated.) |
 |
A
simple game that many primary teachers use is one that can easily
be played in the home. To develop a sight-recognition vocabulary,
that is, words that occur frequently in many things your child will
be reading (or difficult words that confuse him) 3 x 5 index cards.
You may have to trim them a bit. Print word to a card. Attach a paper
clip to one end. Then use a stick, perhaps two feet long, attach a
string, and at the dangling end, tie on a small magnet. Have your
child "fish" for words. As he pulls out a word, give him
a point for each one he correctly pronounces. (It is best to start
with just a few in the "pond" and gradually add more as
he acquires competency.) |
 |
Codes. All children seem to love decoding secret messages. Librarians can
direct you to books on simple codes for children, or you and your
child can make up your own codes. You can then write secret messages
to each other. |
 |
Learning
just one new word a day can be a major task for many youngsters.
When words are confusing (such as "went" and "want"
or "this" and "that") try making several flash
cards of the same word and posting them in several key spots around
the house. The refrigerator door, the door to the bathroom, the mirror
in the bathroom, for example, all make perfect places for repeated
visual exposureand verbalization of the word. |
 |
Write
short stories with your child about things he has done that are
exciting. Perhaps you have a photograph album. Take out some "action"
shots and have him make a scrapbook of his very own. Paste a photograph
on each page and write, or have him write, a story describing what
happened when the photograph was taken. |
 |
Charts
and graphs, placed in easy access, often serve to motivate children
who are reluctant readers. A graph showing the number of words recognized,
week by week, or pages read or sounds known can be attractive rewards
unto themselves. |
|
|
See Also:Helping
Your Children at Home with Arithmetic
Helping
Your Children at Home with Spelling
Helping
Your Children at Home with Handwriting
Helping Your Children at Home with Vocabulary
Helping Your Children at Home with Geography
Return to Resources
|