Dr. Evelyn Backa, School Psychologist
Encouraging and fostering reading skills in the early grades is one of the most important things we can do to support a child’s later academic success. Parents play a crucial role in helping their child become a strong, confident reader.
Here are a few fun ideas to promote early reading skills in your home!
Kindergarten:
• Say silly tongue twisters - Sing songs, read rhyming books, and say silly tongue twisters. These help kids become sensitive to the sounds in words.
• Play sound games - Practice blending sounds into words. Ask, “Can you guess what this word is? M – o – p.” Hold each sound longer than normal.
• Read it again and again - Go ahead and read your child’s favorite book for the 100th time! As you read, pause and ask your child about what is going on in the book.
First Grade:
• Don’t leave home without it - Bring along a book or magazine any time your child has to wait, such as at a doctor’s office. Always try to fit in reading!
• Play word games - Use plastic letters or letter cards to make a simple consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word (e.g., mat). Have your child sound out the word. Then have your child sound out the new word as you change one letter. For example, change mat to fat to sat; sat to sag to sap; and sap to sip.
• I read to you, you read to me - Take turns reading aloud at bedtime. Kids enjoy this special time with their parents.
Second Grade:
• Be your child’s #1 fan - Ask your child to read aloud what he or she has written for school. Be an enthusiastic listener.
• One more time with feeling - When your child has sounded out an unfamiliar word, have him or her re-read that sentence. Often, kids are so busy figuring out a word they lose the meaning of what they’ve just read.
• Point out the relationship between words - Explain how related words have similar spellings and meanings. Show how a word like knowledge, for example, relates to a word like know.
Reference: www.ReadingRockets.org
Encouraging and fostering reading skills in the early grades is one of the most important things we can do to support a child’s later academic success. Parents play a crucial role in helping their child become a strong, confident reader.
Here are a few fun ideas to promote early reading skills in your home!
Kindergarten:
• Say silly tongue twisters - Sing songs, read rhyming books, and say silly tongue twisters. These help kids become sensitive to the sounds in words.
• Play sound games - Practice blending sounds into words. Ask, “Can you guess what this word is? M – o – p.” Hold each sound longer than normal.
• Read it again and again - Go ahead and read your child’s favorite book for the 100th time! As you read, pause and ask your child about what is going on in the book.
First Grade:
• Don’t leave home without it - Bring along a book or magazine any time your child has to wait, such as at a doctor’s office. Always try to fit in reading!
• Play word games - Use plastic letters or letter cards to make a simple consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word (e.g., mat). Have your child sound out the word. Then have your child sound out the new word as you change one letter. For example, change mat to fat to sat; sat to sag to sap; and sap to sip.
• I read to you, you read to me - Take turns reading aloud at bedtime. Kids enjoy this special time with their parents.
Second Grade:
• Be your child’s #1 fan - Ask your child to read aloud what he or she has written for school. Be an enthusiastic listener.
• One more time with feeling - When your child has sounded out an unfamiliar word, have him or her re-read that sentence. Often, kids are so busy figuring out a word they lose the meaning of what they’ve just read.
• Point out the relationship between words - Explain how related words have similar spellings and meanings. Show how a word like knowledge, for example, relates to a word like know.
Reference: www.ReadingRockets.org