Tips for Parents: How to be a strong, positive influence for your young reader. By Kori Mangold

Appreciate the Written Word Read to your child each day. “Lap time” fosters a love of reading. Make books available to your child. Be a reader yourself. Show how reading is part of your everyday life.

Develop Awareness of Printed Language While reading together let your child turn the pages. Point to words when you read. Invite your child to join in on repetitive phrases. Point out words and letters you see often. Look for environmental print (like the McDonald’s sign).

Learn the Alphabet Sing the Alphabet with your child. Start by teaching the first letter in their name. Ask them the first letter of familiar names. “What does Mommy begin with?” “What else starts like Mommy?” Help your child write letters in their name.

Letters and Words are Related Teach your child to spell a few special words. Draw attention to these words, and challenge your child to read them every time they see them. Play word building games with letters and words they already know. Build on what they know.

Language is Made of Words, Syllables and Phonemes Phonemes are individual sounds. Sing songs and rhymes with your child. Play the name game. “Anna, Anna, Bo Banna!” Look at chunks of words. “What would cat sound like without the C sound?” “What is another word that would rhyme with cat?” (bat, hat, fat, etc.) What would “cupcake” sound like without “cup”? What would “Tuesday” sound like without “Tues”?

Learn Letter Sounds Sound out letters with your child. Point out words that start with the first letter in their name. Again, build on sounds they know. If they can spell “like”, ask how they would spell “bike” or “hike”. Dr. Seuss books, and other rhyming books help teach letter sounds.

Sound out Words Point out new words. Make the sound of each letter, and then blend the sounds together to make the entire word. If too many words in any given book require your child to sound out, the book is too difficult for them to read on their own. While writing, encourage your child to spell by stretching out each sound in the word, and writing the sounds down. Temporary spellings are ok, if the letters they write match the sounds in the words.

Make Reading Fun! Help your child read easy and enjoyable stories often, so they can experience success. Sit together, take turns reading, and talk about the events in the book. At the end of the book revisit the difficult words. Rereading those old favorites is very beneficial to your child!

Know Spelling Patterns Begin to focus on chunks of words, and not just individual letters. Point out similarities between words, and build on words they already know. If they can spell will, ask them to try hill, pill, etc. This is a good time to begin pointing out correct spellings of words they still do not know.

Learn to Read Reflectively When reading with or to your child stop and talk about the characters, events, problems, and how the problems may be solved. Make predictions of what will happen next, and CHECK to see if your predictions were right. Talk about how the story relates to their life. Do they know a character like the one in the book? Have they had the same problem as the one discussed in the story? Share opinions of events in the books. Review what has happened as you read.

Finally: Read Re-read! Please call upon Mrs. Walter-Ness, Mrs. Mangold, or Mrs. Steinbach our reading teachers, with any concerns or questions regarding your child’s reading. or or *Information summarized from ERIC Clearinghouseon Disabilities and Gifted Education Copyright 1996

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