Ready, Set, Read! How to Develop Your Child's Reading Skills at Every Grade Level
Think of why you read: to perform a task, to be informed and for literary experience. If you had not developed solid reading skills as a child, you may have difficulty completing job-related tasks or reading for enjoyment. Education experts agree that children develop reading behaviors early in life and that parental involvement at home helps children perform better in school and become enthusiastic, lifelong readers.Save $100 now on a Sylvan reading program.
"Beginning early in our childhood we develop the behaviors necessary to put reading to use for different purposes and to perform various functions," says, Richard Bavaria, Ph.D., vice president of education outreach for Sylvan Learning. "Throughout our lives we read directions or instructions to perform a task, we read newspapers, magazines and other materials to be informed, and we read stories, poetry, plays and other enjoyable materials for the literary experience."
By encouraging children to read at home, parents can help their children establish a lifelong love of books, transforming reading from a basic skill to a pleasurable activity. Sylvan Learning recommends that parents spend at least one hour per week — 10 to 15 minutes a day — reading with their child.
"Children who read regularly at home do better in school. Parents play an instrumental role in the development of their children's reading behaviors and in fostering an enthusiasm for reading," says Dr. Bavaria. "Reading is an adventure that begins early in a child's life and should extend beyond the classroom. Children exhibit certain reading behaviors at a young age and by understanding and nurturing these behaviors, parents can make reading fun and motivate their child to develop a lifelong friendship with books."
Try these grade-specific tips and ideas to boost your child's reading skills!
Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten
- Read directions to your child when completing a project.
- Subscribe to a magazine for your child (Ladybug, Your Big Backyard, Zoobooks, etc.) to learn about topics of interest to him. He/She will be excited about having his own reading materials.
- Pick a storybook character (Arthur, Strega Nona, etc.) and pretend that character is coming for dinner. Help your child plan activities that character would like.
- Help your child relate read-aloud stories to events in his/her life.
Grades 1-3
- Subscribe to a magazine for your child (Spider, Ranger Rick, etc.) to learn about topics of interest to him/her. Make its arrival an event.
- After reading a non-fiction story, ask your child why he/she thinks the author wrote the story.
- Help your child create charts and posters about topics of interest to her/him.
- Read picture books by the same author (Tomie DePaola, Bill Martin, Jr., etc.) and compare and contrast them: How are they the same? How are they different?
- Help your child with the latest experiment in his/her science book. Talk through each step and discuss what you're going to do next.
- Pick a different country each week, and challenge him/her to learn a bit more about that country by visiting the library or researching it online.
- Encourage your child to read series books (Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, The Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, etc).
- Create a family book club where you and your child read the same book and discuss it.
- Read various types of directions (recipes, technical instructions, experiments) and determine the usefulness of the instructions to the reader's life.
- Quiz your teen when he/she has a test. This not only reinforces his/her note-taking skills and study habits, but also helps reading comprehension.
- Encourage your teen to talk about the latest book he/she is reading. Ask him/her to share his/her favorite scenes with the rest of the family.
- Read classic works (novels, plays, myths, etc.) and compare to today's world.
- Read books by the same author, comparing and contrasting style across the various books.
