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Ready, Set, Read: Specific activities to make your child a reader!

Providing positive, enjoyable literacy experiences give young children opportunities to gain the knowledge, awareness, skills, and love of learning that they need to later learn to read independently. Here are 8 ways you can provide those experiences:

CHOOSE THE RIGHT BOOKS

Choose books that have large colorful pictures or photos; a few words on a page; rich language; and relate to concepts, people, or things in children’s lives. With this exposure, young children learn that books and reading explain the world they live in and ultimately help them better understand themselves. Sound like a tall order for a toddler?

Not really when you consider perennial favorites such as The Hungry Caterpillar. This book does not contain many words but teaches counting and science concepts.

READ OUT LOUD

Read to children regularly and often. Pick a regular reading time, but also watch for opportunities to read books, signs, letters, or other print spontaneously. The experience of reading as a typical, everyday occurrence helps children gain confidence that they can learn to read themselves.

Stories influence children’s learning for life. Some research suggests that the more stories children hear before entering school, the more likely they will be successful academically. Listening to books benefits their vocabulary and comprehension.

Spending just 15 minutes a day on this worthwhile activity can reap tremendous benefits!

MAKE READING FUN

Use a variety of expressions, tones, and voices to make a book even more fun.

Allow a child to listen at her own pace. If a baby fusses or a toddler wanders away, don’t worry. Set the book aside and try again later. A baby may only listen for a minute or two at a time. Toddlers may want to wander around while you read, or listen to a few pages, move on to something else, and then return for a few more pages.

Encourage a child to join in on repeating phrases or rhymes, and honor requests to read the same book over and over.

MAKE BOOKS AVAILABLE

Make books available to babies and toddlers every day. Babies don’t distinguish books from other toys and may pull, toss, or chew books. This tactile, physical exploration of books and how they work is important to literacy development.

Show how books work. Point out the cover, show which is the top and bottom, front and back of the book, and talk about how words are read from left to right on the page. Use your finger to point to a word and the corresponding picture on the page.

TALK TO YOUR CHILD

Remember literacy is about more than reading the printed word, it is about communication and understanding.

According to the National Research Council in Starting Out Right: A Guide to Promoting Reading Success, “Talk is essential – the more meaningful and substantive the better.” Babies and toddlers learn about the sounds, meanings, and ideas in language when adults talk with them. Preschoolers expand their vocabulary and learn sentence structure.

Conversations with your children about what they are reading are critical to children’s learning. Discussing books helps them understand how stories work, and how language works. When reading, stop and talk about the pictures and words on the page.

LISTEN TO YOUR CHILD

As much as babies, toddlers, and preschoolers need to hear language, they also need to practice and imitate sounds and words with interested listeners. Respond to your child’s conversation and repeat their words back to them. Ask questions to show you are listening and that encourage a child to talk. Listen carefully and acknowledge answers. Listen to children’s questions and take time to answer.

SING WITH YOUR CHILD

Children love to sing and can learn a great deal about stories and language from many popular children’s songs. Songs also often teach through their content (alphabet, counting, etc.) Many nursery rhymes can also be learned through song and knowledge of nursery rhymes is an important part of overall literacy.

Pull out old favorites like “This Old Man” or “Where is Thumbkin?” and make up your own songs, too.

LET YOUR CHILD WRITE

When children write, they naturally begin to pay attention to the sounds words make and the letters that form words. And it doesn’t matter how they spell! Recent research shows that young children who are allowed to write often with invented spelling, develop the ability to become good readers.

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Parents at times feel uneasy reading to their children. It could be for numerous different reasons. Perhaps they don’t take to reading themselves. Possibly their reading skills are not the best. Or maybe they feel like they have to produce comical faces and make un-natural sounds in order to read a little one’s book. So for fear of embarrassment, they pass on the reading assignment.

There are numerous ways to share books with your little one. Your reading skills do not have to be top notch. Just the one-on-one time alongside your little one is making a difference to them. The closeness and sharing of stories will pay off for years to come.

You want to try and read to your little one every day. You need to radiate an excitement about reading a story together so that your child thinks of reading as fun. There are a few ways to make reading fun. You can talk or sing about the pictures in the book. You don’t have to read it word for word. Occasionally it is more intriguing to add your own twist to a story. Talk about your own relatives or friends and add their names to the story.

Ask questions about the pictures in the book. Let your little one create their own take on the story. They may see the pictures speaking to them a bit differently than what the words depict. This will open up a vast dialogue and a chance for you to elaborate on things in the pictures and assist your child in discovering the world we live in.

Show your children the cover of the book and let them recite to you what they believe the book is about. If they are too young to do so, point out certain items in the pictures to help them learn the names of the characters that might be in the pages that follow.

Let your little one turn the pages of the book for you. This will help them interact with the book and get familiar with how books are laid out.

Children have a short attention span, so don’t get discouraged if they lose interest before you are finished reading the book.

Remember to have fun with reading, and your child will pick up on this positive reinforcement of reading.

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Learning to read can be a challenging adventure for some children. It seems that everyone from a child’s teacher to Mom and Dad and even Grandma is excited and waiting for the child to learn to read. All the pressure and expectations from the adults can sure put a damper on the excitement for the child. This loss of excitement can lead to a child who loses the desire to read. If we as parents can find ways to make reading fun and enjoyable, our children will be more willing to sit down and read a book together.

Here are a few ideas you can do to make reading fun for your child.

Popcorn Reading
This is a fun way for a child to be able to read the words he/she knows and pass on the words that are causing frustration. While reading a book together, each of you take a turn reading aloud. When the one who is reading says the word popcorn, it is the other persons turn to read.

Reading Buddy
Pair your reader up with an older reading buddy and have them read a book out loud together. We all have had times where an explanation of something made more sense coming from one of our peers or a sibling. This gives you child the opportunity to practice reading without an adults watchful eye causing possible nervousness.

Highlight Heaven
Grab an older book and a highlighter and have your child highlight every word one the page that he/she can read. After all the words your child knows are highlighted on the page, take a moment and have your child look and see how many words he/she can actually read. This is quite a confidence booster.

Flashlight Reading
Before your child is too tired at the end of the day, take some time and read in dark room. Take a flashlight with you and read the book by flashlight. Little boys especially like this one.

Secret Hideout
What child hasn’t built a fort at one time or another? If you don’t already have a fort in your house or outside in the yard, help your child create one. It can a blanket fort, a plywood fort outside, a tree house, or even a simple under to bed fort. (Just make sure you both can fit…being able to get out once you’ve gotten in is helpful too!) Bring your child’s favorite reading book, get comfortable and read away.

Reading Corner
Make a reading corner somewhere in your home. Let your child be a part of decorating it and picking just the right spot to place it. Add some bean bags or pillows, maybe a favorite poster on the wall or even some family pictures.

Take a break and just read to your child sometimes
No explanation needed here.

Picture Detective
Have your child flip through a book and look at all the pictures and tell you what he/she thinks is going to happen in the story. Read the story and see how close he/she was.

Pop-up word
Pick one word that your child particularly has a hard time with and every time your child reads that word, both of you stand up. This will help him/her remember the word because an action is associated with it. This works particularly well with kinesthetic learners. (A child who wants to move all the time and likes to touch and feel everything.)

Star of the Story
Have you ever seen a personalized story book where your child’s name is printed in the story? This is a unique way to get your reluctant reader excited about a book. In these kinds of books, your child’s name and the name of his/her friends are printed in the story-line, making your child the star of his/her very own book! How motivating is that? He/she will have to read the book to find out what kind of adventure he/she will be going on!

To learn more about personalized story books, click the link below.

Sometimes all it takes to make reading fun is some imagination and a change of scenery.

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