Help your Child Fall in Love with Reading

Listen to read aloud: 30-45 minutes per day

Reading lesson: 10-15 minutes

Read out loud for fun to a family member or pet: 10-15 minutes

Read independently for pleasure: 30 minutes (1-3x per day)

Set aside time to snuggle and read out loud to your child.
Research supports the effectiveness of reading aloud to children to help them acquire language skills, develop sound-word awareness, to build vocabulary and cognitive skills, and to create a positive relationship with reading, books and the adults who love them. Choose engaging stories...not too long. Pick stories with lovely illustrations and themes that resonate with your child. Read to your child every day. Make it the best time of the day. 

Find books that are “just right”… neither too easy nor too hard.

“Research indicates that “fluency develops as a result of many opportunities to practice reading with a high degree of success.”

If your child must stop to sound out, or misreads, more that 2-3 words per 100, the book is too hard for independent, joyful reading.

If you do not know the reading level or Lexile level for your child, you can make an educated guess. Find a book that was a good fit for your child, and search for it on one of the sites below. You will find the level of that book, as well as other similar books.

Here are a few online tools that help you determine a book’s reading level:

 Scholastic Book Wizard and Accelerated Reader and Lexile

Have PLENTY of books available that are at or below your child’s independent reading level. 
Include books old and new. Include picture books, graphic novels, short chapter books and longer works. Choose a variety of topics. Make sure to include some favorite books from a series. If your child finds an author or series to love, the battle is half won!

For great booklists, check out websites like The Read Aloud Revival; Imagination Soup and A Charlotte Mason Home

Have your child read to you.

When your child can read or memorize even the simplest book have your child read to you. Ooh and Aah! Celebrate the success. Enjoy the story. IF your child gets stuck on a word, just say the word. This is NOT a reading lesson. This is reading and learning the pleasure of books. The goal is to build a love for reading. Keep reading instruction for another time.

Drop everything and read.

By making quiet time for reading a priority in your home, 
your children will catch the reading bug from you. While they chew on their board or cloth books (infants and toddlers) look through their favorite beautifully illustrated books (pre-readers), or explore the latest offerings form the library or home shelf (readers), take 10-30 minutes of quiet reading for your own pleasure. This might happen in the quiet of the bedroom after tuck-ins or in the lazy part of the afternoon. Find a time and find a way for everyone to read.