This post is focused on READING.
These are important reading years for a child. They are the final years where a child is expected to learn to read before they go off to Grade 4 where they begin to read to learn. Once again, the best way to improve reading is to help your child find their joy in their reading. Talking about their identity as a reader can help them become aware of the things that bring them joy while they are reading. Ask your child questions like the following:
Who are you as a reader?
What do you enjoy reading?
What stories do you enjoy listening to because they spark your imagination?
What topics do you enjoy learning about?
If your child is not able to answer these questions yet, bring their attention to what they enjoy. When you see them intrigued by a book, you can say, “I see you are a reader who enjoys books about ____”. If you finish reading them a book they enjoyed say, “I noticed you are a reader who enjoys listening to stories about ____.”
A NOTE ON READING: Listening to stories or information is just as important a skill to develop as reading the book themselves. My recommendations will involve your child reading books themselves, as well as listening to stories in a variety of ways.
DECODING
Decoding is being able to read the words accurately. It is the skill that we see parents generally focus on the most. I see a lot of confidence in our students dependent on if they can decode or not. I work hard to explain that this is only ONE part of reading. I work on a broad range of reading skills and it is not uncommon for a student to struggle with decoding and have stronger than average comprehension skills. It is important for a student to see reading as a range of skills which are all important.
To improve decoding, it can be helpful to read a page to your child, read it together, and then have them read it to you. Keep reading the book over and over again, until they are able to read it independently. Choose books where they can read most of the words. If it is too challenging they will become frustrated. Please speak to me if you want me to recommend books for your child.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON DECODING
Decoding can be the death of joy. If you are only reading dry books with your child that they are not interested in, they will start to dislike reading. Who can blame them? Make sure that you only work on decoding for short amounts of time and then go back to developing your child’s joy of reading.
COMPREHENSION AND FLUENCY
Comprehension and fluency are very important skills that are often overlooked. Comprehension is being able to understand what you are reading. Fluency is being able to read smoothly and with expression.
Comprehension can be broken up into connecting, visualizing, questioning, and inferring. The best way to develop comprehension skills is to talk about what you are reading, listening to, or watching. See what your child is reminded of (connecting). Ask them to describe the pictures they make in their minds (visualizing). Ask them why you think something has happened or what they think is going to happen next (questioning). Read a book with almost no text and have the child explain what is happening. Ask them what clues gave them that information (inferring).
Fluency is best developed from listening to animated story tellers and from your child reading out loud themselves. Model paying attention to the punctuation and reading with expression in your voice. Then have your child read the same page in the same way. Listen to stories together and talk about what your favourite readers do to make the stories so interesting to listen to.
JOY!
Here is a list of fun activities your child can do to develop ALL of their reading skills. Click on the images for links:
Go to the library! I go to the library with my children every other week. The libraries have all of the books your child could ever dream of and it is a great skill to ask the librarian to help you find books that you are interested in. They are pros! The Burnaby Public library has also developed wonderful lists to support helping children find books they enjoy.
Find a series of books that you can read to your child. I still have fond memories of my father reading the Narnia books to me as I was growing up. Keep bedtime stories with your children going!
P.S.- Librarians can also help you find a series that you and your child can enjoy together.
Enjoy online books. Our class Symbaloo has various websites you can go to that read the books to your child. I love them because they light up the words as they are reading them. The reading websites are the pink tiles on the top left of the Symbaloo.
Listen to stories. Audible has free books your child can listen to without the stimulation of a screen.
Listen to podcasts. I love listening to podcasts with my kids. A few recommendations are, A Bedtime Show for Kids of All Ages, Wow in the World, But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids, and The Story Store. I recommend that you pick a topic that your child is into and you can find a podcast on it!
My last tip is to simply add the subtitles function onto your child’s shows. Whatever the platform is, there should be a way to click on the subtitles. This way they are looking at text as the characters are saying them on the shows. They will start reading without even knowing it!
I hope that you enjoy some of these reading activities at home. Please let me know if I can support in any other way.
Have fun reading!
Cari