Help Your Child Fall In Love With Reading

Schools all over the world will celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday on March 2^nd.   It is also the start of “Read Across America”, the National Education Association’s annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on March 2, the birthday of beloved children's author Dr. Seuss.

Reading is one of the key components for academic success! 

Help your child fall in love with reading by making it a special time with you!  Here are a few tips to help your child become a reader: 

·      Talk with your child — even infants — this increases language development.

·       Make reading time fun by being animated and dynamic when you read!

·       Role model reading.

·       Ask open-ended questions that encourage a sense of wonder, imagination and creative thinking.  Typical open-ended questions are “How” and “Why” questions and questions that don’t have one specific answer.  They teach children to think and be creative!!  

What you can do to help your child be successful at reading:

1. Babble back to your infants
2. Use “parentese” with your infant (high pitched voice)
3. Encourage conversation
4. Teach site words. e.g., McDonalds, Lucky Charms, Barney
5. Dramatic play and using props such as puppets can be great opportunities for conversation
6. Speak another language you are wiring the brain for a lifetime of multiple languages
7. Encourage drawing and inventive spelling
8. Script – write their story and make it into a book
9. In addition to reading stories, include rhymes, songs and other languages (Frere Jacques)
10. Place labels on furniture and objects in  your child’s environment to create a print rich environment
11. Make shopping lists with your child
12. Read and cook recipes together
13. Look for letters on the Menu when you go out to eat
14. Look in magazines for pictures that begin with the letter you are studying and cut them out.
15. Make an alphabet book
16. Read a book and then ask children a few questions to test their comprehension
17. Glue letters from an alphabet cereal on a piece of paper.
18. Put alphabet cereal on a plate and help children make their names out of the cereal
19. Keep magnetic letters on the refrigerator.
20. Make up silly songs starting with the letter you are studying.
21. Talk to your child
22. Sing with your child
23. Read to your child everyday
24. Make up silly rhyming songs with your child
25. Provide writing materials
26. Limit television watching and when you do watch, be sure to guide your children to appropriate shows
27. Role model reading
28. Visit libraries and bookstores
29. Select a quality child care program
30. Read to children and ask them to predict what will happen next.

Here are some tips from the National Association for the Education of Young Children to promote reading at home. Tips to help your child fall in love with reading!