How to Read to Your Child

Here are some strategies that you can use while reading together to enhance comprehension and fluency (reading speed and smoothness).

• Before reading
  Find books about subjects your child is interested in or is studying in school. If a child is interested in the subject matter, he or she will attempt to read books of almost any difficulty about that subject. Help your child search for and choose high-interest reading matter or books that supplement what is going on in class. Our Lexile “Find a Book” search can help!
  Mix easy books with hard books. Read books both above and below your child’s Lexile measure. Reading easy books helps a child feel confident and enjoy reading. Then he or she will be more apt to read the harder books.
  Look through the pictures. Familiarize yourself with the pictures to have a sense of the story.
  
  
• While reading
  Have your child read aloud to you. Encourage your child to try to sound out words he or she doesn’t know, but offer help. Pronounce the difficult word, provide a definition, and ask your child to repeat the word aloud.
  Slow and steady wins the race. Try not to break the flow of reading too much. Help your child with tough words but otherwise let your child read at his or her pace.
  Take turns reading pages. You read the left pages and your child reads the right pages. This helps him or her get into longer stories without being intimidated by the sheer number of words.
  Act out the story. Use different voices for the characters in a story. Use gestures, and touch the pictures to dramatize action.
  Ask questions. Pause in the middle of the book to guess at what will happen next in the story.
  
  
• After reading
  Talk about the book. Ask questions about what interested your child, or about his or her favorite part of the story. Help your child summarize the book or talk about its moral. Ask “Why do you think the author wrote this book?”
  Re-read your child’s favorites. Re-reading reinforces the new vocabulary and helps your child “own” those words.
  Combine art projects with reading. Draw pictures of your favorite scenes from a book. Write an original story or play with a book’s characters. Have a themed birthday party based on a favorite book, and design all the decorations together.
  Track your child’s progress. Put your child’s Lexile BookBag on the refrigerator and mark the books as her or she reads them.