Reading Tips
Before reading
- Turn off electronic devices and give your child all your attention.
- Let your child pick and choose what they read for pleasure.
- Find a comfortable place to sit and read together.
- If your child is reading to you, let them hold the book.
- Ask your child to predict what the book will be about from clues on the cover.
- Ask them to use their first impression to predict if the book is a story book or an information book.
During reading
- Run your finger along the line to show your child that text runs left to right, top to bottom.
- Once or twice during reading, ask your child to predict what might happen next.
- Suggest ways for them to figure out difficult words by sounding out the letters or finding parts of the word they already know.
- Let them make mistakes and give them time to self-correct.
- If they are stuck on a difficult word, try breaking the word down into separate sounds. Ask them to go back and re-read the sentence so comprehension isn’t lost.
- It’s okay to talk about the pictures or only read parts of the book.
- Ask them what they would do / how they would feel if they were in the story.
After reading
- Ask your child to tell you what they did / didn’t like about the book.
- Encourage them to re-tell the story or a fact from the book.
- Allow them to read favourite books again and again.