March 23, 2008
Dear Parents,
I have listed some general suggestions that you can do to help support the reading growth of your child. These suggestions are useful for almost any child at a beginning reading level. If you do some of them regularly in a motivating and supportive way, they will help your child make faster progress in learning to read. Many of these activities will build phonemic awareness, comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary and will ultimately help your child enjoy learning to read.
1. Create a special workspace and schedule daily quiet time for your child to do his/her homework from school. Be sure it is a time you are available to help if needed.
2. Schedule 15 minutes of special time everyday to listen to your child read.
3. Go to the school library, public library, or to the local bookstore once each week and read a new book together. Read the title then look at the cover and pictures inside. Ask your child to predict what the book is about. After reading the book, review prediction then ask about the characters, setting, problem and solution.
4. Fact or Opinion Game: The parent says a sentence to the child then asks whether it is a fact or opinion. Ex: The weather is nice. (Opinion) A dog can bark. (Fact)
5. Encourage reading fluency by having your child read and reread familiar books. It can also be helpful to have your child read a short passage over several times while you record the time it takes. Children often enjoy seeing if they can improve their time from one reading to the next, and the repeated reading helps to establish a habit of fluent reading.
6. Take every opportunity you can to help increase your child’s vocabulary. You can do this by pointing to things and asking the child to tell you what they are, or you can stop and explain the meaning of any words in your reading that the child may not understand. The more you talk to your child, the faster their vocabulary will grow.
7. Pick out a new vocabulary word from one of the books you are reading with your child. Talk about what it means then make up a sentence with the new word. Try to use the word again that week.
8. Play rhyming games. Say two words that rhyme (e.g. cat, sat) and ask your child to say a word that rhymes with your words. Take turns. Ask your child to say a word and then you respond with a rhyming word. For example, child says "cat", parent says "hat"; child says "chair", parent says "pair".
9. Take turns thinking of two words that end with the same sound. Examples: mom, some; dog, rug; fun, ran; paper, feather.
10. Play the “say the word slowly” game. Say a word at normal rate and then have your child say that same word slowly, one sound at a time. For example, say the word, “mat.” Then your child will say that same word slowly, one sound at a time, “/m/ /a/ /t/.” Play this game using about five to ten short words each day.
11. Fold a piece of paper into three parts. Let your child draw a picture of something he did in sequence. Then help your child write one sentence under each picture explaining what he did first, next and last.
12. Take frequent breaks while reading to ask “wh” questions- who, what, when, where, why.
Happy Reading,
Mrs. Druhot 