Reading Tips for Parents of First Graders

Reading Tips for Parents of First Graders

By:Reading Rockets

Give your child lots of opportunities to read aloud. Inspire your young reader to practice every day! The tips below offer some fun ways you can help your child become a happy and confident reader. Try a new tip each week. See what works best for your child.

Don't leave home without it

Bring along a book or magazine any time your child has to wait, such as at a doctor's office. Always try to fit in reading!

Once is not enough

Encourage your child to re-read favorite books and poems. Re-reading helps kids read more quickly and accurately.

Dig deeper into the story

Ask your child questions about the story you've just read. Say something like, "Why do you think Clifford did that?"

Take control of the television

It's difficult for reading to compete with TV and video games. Encourage reading as a free-time activity.

Be patient

When your child is trying to sound out an unfamiliar word, give him or her time to do so. Remind to child to look closely at the first letter or letters of the word.

Pick books that are at the right level

Help your child pick books that are not too difficult. The aim is to give your child lots of successful reading experiences.

Play word games

Have your child sound out the word as you change it from mat to fat to sat; from sat to sag to sap; and from sap to sip.

I read to you, you read to me

Take turns reading aloud at bedtime. Kids enjoy this special time with their parents.

Gently correct your young reader

When your child makes a mistake, gently point out the letters he or she overlooked or read incorrectly. Many beginning readers will guess wildly at a word based on its first letter.

Talk, talk, talk!

Talk with your child every day about school and things going on around the house. Sprinkle some interesting words into the conversation, and build on words you've talked about in the past.

Write, write, write!

Ask your child to help you write out the grocery list, a thank you note to Grandma, or to keep a journal of special things that happen at home. When writing, encourage your child to use the letter and sound patterns he is learning at school.

Simple Strategies for Creating Strong Readers

Without doubt, reading with children spells success for early literacy. Putting a few simple strategies into action will make a significant difference in helping children develop into good readers and writers.

Through reading aloud, providing print materials, and promoting positive attitudes about reading and writing, you can have a powerful impact on children's literacy and learning.

• Invite a child to read with you every day.
• When reading a book where the print is large, point word by word as you read. This will help the child learn that reading goes from left to right and understand that the word he or she says is the word he or she sees.
• Read a child's favorite book over and over again.
• Read many stories with rhyming words and lines that repeat. Invite the child to join in on these parts. Point, word by word, as he or she reads along with you.
• Discuss new words. For example, "This big house is called a palace. Who do you think lives in a palace?"
• Stop and ask about the pictures and about what is happening in the story.
• Read from a variety of children's books, including fairy tales, song books, poems, and information books.

Reading well is at the heart of all learning. Children who can't read well, can't learn. Help make a difference for a child.

The Five Essential Components of Reading

Reading with children and helping them practice specific reading components can dramatically improve their ability to read. Scientific research shows that there are five essential components of reading that children must be taught in order to learn to read. Adults can help children learn to be good readers by systematically practicing these five components:

• Recognizing and using individual sounds to create words, orphonemic awareness. Children need to be taught to hear sounds in words and that words are made up of the smallest parts of sound, or phonemes.
• Understanding the relationships between written letters and spoken sounds, orphonics. Children need to be taught the sounds individual printed letters and groups of letters make. Knowing the relationships between letters and sounds helps children to recognize familiar words accurately and automatically, and "decode" new words.
• Developing the ability to read a text accurately and quickly, orreading fluency. Children must learn to read words rapidly and accurately in order to understand what is read. When fluent readers read silently, they recognize words automatically. When fluent readers read aloud, they read effortlessly and with expression. Readers who are weak in fluency read slowly, word by word, focusing on decoding words instead of comprehending meaning.
• Learning the meaning and pronunciation of words, orvocabulary development. Children need to actively build and expand their knowledge of written and spoken words, what they mean and how they are used.
• Acquiring strategies to understand, remember and communicate what is read, orreading comprehension strategies. Children need to be taught comprehension strategies, or the steps good readers use to make sure they understand text. Students who are in control of their own reading comprehension become purposeful, active readers.