Reading at Home

In all instances of reading, students should be exposed to all varieties of text types (poetry, historical fiction, journals, news articles, etc.). The more you can do to make this time fun, the more growth you will see in your child. It is not only an opportunity to bond with your child, but it is an opportunity to pass on the love of reading.

When reading to your child:

Stop regularly and ask probing questions related to comprehension and metacognition. For example:

• What do you think the characters look like? Tell me why you think that.
• Why do you think the character did that? What in the text makes you think that?
• Where is the character going? Where does it say that in the text?
• What might happen next? Why do you think that? What evidence in the text makes you think that?
• Tell me one thing that you learned from this book.
• Why do you think the author wrote this story?
• What does this picture tell us about the text? Why do you think that?
• What is this a map of?
• Why did the author caption this picture in this fashion? What does it tell us about the image?
• Let's look at the table of contents and see what we might be reading about. 
• Is there an index? Let's find where else that happened. 

It is a great opportunity to develop vocabulary by sharing word meanings with your child as well as like words (word families). 

Model your own proficient reading and thinking. For example:

• That was a tricky part, I'm going to go back and re-read to see if I can understand it better.
• I think the character will...
• I predict...because the book says...
• I wonder what lesson I could learn in this book.

When your child is reading to you:

Stop regularly and ask probing questions regarding comprehension (think of who, what, when, where and the why) returning to the text for evidence. 

• What do you think the characters look like? Tell me why you think that.
• Why do you think the character did that? What in the text makes you think that?
• Where is the character going? Where does it say that in the text?
• What might happen next? Why do you think that? What evidence in the text makes you think that?
• Tell me one thing that you learned from this book.
• Why do you think the author wrote this story?
• Did that part make sense? Can you tell me what just happened?
• What is going on here? Why is there conflict? How do you know that from the text?
• What does this picture tell us about the text? Why do you think that?
• What is this a map of?
• Why did the author caption this picture in this fashion? What does it tell us about the image?
• Let's look at the table of contents and see what we might be reading about. 
• Is there an index? Let's find where else that happened. 

Your child should be reading a text he/she can access with relative ease. You will want to connect with your child's teacher to determine what might be the best level(s) to work from. You can use the Scholastic Book Wizard to find some texts that might interest your child, as well as public libraries.

Help with pronunciation, when needed. If your child gets stuck on a word, he/she can try to sound it out and attack it again. You might need to provide it at times. Avoid saying things like "what word might work there?" "what word might make sense there?", as these promote guessing.

When your child is reading independently:

It is essential that your child can easily access these texts because in independent reading, he/she does not have access to someone else to guide.

• Please check in with your teacher for an appropriate level(s). While it is tempting to offer texts to kids that might be considerably above level, these are texts that you would want to be a part of your read aloud with your child instead of independent reading. Students can often read the words on the page, but text complexity may create barriers to full comprehension.

Independent reading is to promote enjoyment, so it is important that children are able to read text that is both accessible and of interest.