Reading at Home with Early Readers

"Listening comprehension comes before reading comprehension. You must hear a word before you can say it or read and write it. If you've never head the word "enormous" in a meaningful way, you won't understand it when it's time to read or write it. There's a kind of  "word reservoir" in a child's brain and one of the jobs of a parent is to pour so many words into that it overflows into speech and then into reading and writing."  - Jim Trelease

I am exploring the phenomenon of 'home reading' in this blog (see previous entries: 

Snapshot: How Home Reading Became One More Thing on the 'To Do List' for Families (Sept. 8/19)

  What Do Parents Need to Notice and Know about Home Reading? (Sept. 15/19) 

 Strategies for Home Reading with A Child - What Makes Sense for a Parent? (Sept. 23/19)

Hopefully, they will help families support this enormously important and relatively untapped resource for supporting the development of lifelong, successful readers.

Last week, the focus for parents was on strategies that could be used to support children with limited read aloud experiences, to help foster interest and enjoyment in reading.

Once children demonstrate familiarity and independence with text, pointing out particular words or sounds, 'reading' a book independently from memory, or attempting to read words on their own, there are many strategies parents can utilize to further support their children on their journey to becoming enthusiastic and competent readers. Here are a few considerations for parents:

-       Most of the time, have your child select the book to read – although this might be from a particular collection of books to ensure s/he is reading something manageable, the power of choice is a strong motivation for enjoying reading

-       Encourage your child to ‘read with you’ – try reading the text together, or in ‘echo’ fashion where you read and track the words while encouraging your child to repeat – or echo read – just behind you. This is great fun if you use different voices or tones, which your child will echo as well J

-       Before beginning to read, suggest trying to find particular words in detective fashion to introduce them to your child. Choose 3 – 5 words and go on a hunt for them in the text, repeating them as you point to them with your child.  This will build familiarity as you read through the text

-       Re-read texts several times to build familiarity with words, characters, story lines

-       If there are repetitive sentences in a story with just one or two words that are different (these are called pattern books and are a popular choice for early readers), play a game looking for what is the same/what is different on each page.

-       Find rhyming words and make up silly rhymes with them - children love rhymes and word families form a core part of learning to read

-       Talk about the stories your child has chosen to read – do they know why they chose a story? Did they like the characters? The setting? The action? What would they change in a story if they could?

-       Video your child reading the story the first time and then several times later; watch the two versions together and ask her what she notices?  Talk about it together.

- continue reading other stories with your children - stories they choose and are interested in - with new vocabulary, ideas or storylines they have not heard before to build up their vocabulary knowledge

Early readers are in a beautiful position to become interested and excited about the experience of learning to read - parents have an amazing opportunity to make reading an enjoyable experience during these months!

Next week's entry will focus on readers who are well launched into becoming avid and proficient readers, as they move into different genres, chapter books multiple forms of literature.

Lorraine Kinsman, Principal