Good Parenting

When children say they do not like reading we need to hear what they actually say.

What they are telling us overall is they do not have the skills to enjoy it. If your child is telling you this don’t blame him or her instead know you can do something about it. Successful reading is an active not passive activity. Successful readers have sound comprehension and critical thinking skills relevant to their age level.

Recently I was a substitute teacher for a grade 5/6 class. It was hard going. A group of four boys were really playing up. They were by and large really nice kids so they did not get completely out of hand. The activity the class teacher had set and I was supervising,was an article about Antarctica. It was not an easy article to read. The reader had to put effort in to get the author’s message. Most of the class were coping well.

I checked to see if these boys could read it. They could decode the words they were reading very well but they had no idea what they were reading. They were not prepared to put in the effort to use critical thinking and comprehension skills. They were not truly reading this article. A shame because the content was very interesting.

Reading is about meaning. We read to get information from the printed word. It is a complex skill that needs developing it is now believed, from birth. Language underpins it.

There are reading techniques that apply to all kinds of reading material and they need to be taught and modeled early in a child’s life.

Parents are their child’s first teacher and they can set the groundwork for their child becoming a successful reader.

The skills that successful readers have are:

1. They can guess what happens next. This is called prediction. It may not be correct but it is being active as a reader.
2. They have comprehension and decoding skills to work out unfamiliar words.
3. They recognize different types of reading material and their purpose.
4. They can retell in their own words what they read.
5. They have the ability to see a different point of view.
6. They can use clues to discover what the author doesn’t say directly (read between the lines).
7. They work out the main idea or the most important thing the author is saying.
8. They use their imagination to picture the scene, characters and fantasize a role in the story for themselves.
9. They create and write their own stories
10. They know why they like some books and dislike others.

How you as a parent can help develop these skills in your child.

Have daily reading sessions with your child. Involve them. Don’t expect them to sit passively and listen to you read.

Activities You Can Share*Before beginning to read look the book over.

Note illustrations, Ask questions. Get the child’s point of view.

*Ask the child, What happens next?

Listen to their answer. Give your prediction. You both don’t have to be right.

*Encourage your child to figure out the meaning of a word

Use clues in the text,(words and phrases and other sentences) and illustrations.

*Teach your child to separate fact from fiction.

Do you think this is real? Could this happen or is it made up?

*Read a story.

Talk about the order of events in a story. Encourage the child to retell it in their own words.

*Ask questions.

Who is telling the story? How do you know? Are there other ways of telling the story?

*Ask questions that prompt your child to think about what is not directly on the page.

How do you know Ferdinand is a gentle bull?

*Skim through a book you are about to read.

Ask your child what the main idea would be?

*Ask your child to imagine something simple and then describe it to you.

*Encourage her to write.

Write down dictated words and sentences.

*Compare books.

Ask them why they prefer one book over another.

Reading is one of the most important skills learned at school.