Readers in Action

For Parents

• Model a love of reading. Frequently, read children’s books together. Allow your child to see you reading a magazine, a novel, or the sports page. Read items of interest aloud to your child or share a unique photo and caption.

• Respond to your child’s questions in a conversational way, rather than using every question as an opportunity to tell or teach. Use questions as a chance to continue the discussion (What do you think? Why do you think that? How could we find out more?).

• Ask your early or prereader to retell a story to you by just looking at the pictures of a favorite book. Young children often use the pictures to help decode words or recall text. This will build vocabulary, imagination, and story sequencing.

• Invite your child to finish a sentence, a rhyme, or the end of the story. With preschool books that have repetitive phrases (such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?), pause for your child to fill in the next words once he knows the text. This helps the child learn to predict what comes next, build memory skills, increase self esteem and confidence, and build rhyming skills.

• Visit the library or a bookstore with your child. Public library cards are free and therefore, the most expensive and beautiful children’s books in the world can be yours — free! Provide your child opportunities to make his/her own selections by looking for favorite authors, illustrators, or subjects. Look at the illustrations or read a few pages together to generate interest and excitement before taking the book home.

• Establish routines that involve reading, including you reading aloud to your child and your child reading to you. Read a book or a chapter before bed. Read a poem at breakfast or just before dinner. Read a favorite book or poem while waiting at the dentist or doctor’s office.

• Read — aloud or silently — for the same number of minutes that you watch television.