How can I help with my child’s reading over the summer holidays?
The school – and Leap Street – term may have ended, but learning never stops. Here are some tips to help you engage your child with reading over the Summer holidays.
Read a storybook each day to your child and discuss the story, pointing out any new words to enrich their vocabulary. Regardless of the age of your child, reading quality storybooks, chapter books or information books is a valuable way of building vocabulary and comprehension. Reading to your child models fluency and expression and exposes them to literature and vocabulary that they are not ready to read on their own.
Teach your child nursery rhymes, songs and poems. Play language games such as bingo, Scrabble and Pictionary. Talk about letters and sounds in the environment. Help to develop a curiosity about language and the sounds within words by playing word and sound games such as ‘I Spy’. If your child has started to learn the sounds for the letters, help them to revise them by pointing out objects that start with those letter sounds and ask your child to think of things that begin with that sound e.g., ‘m’ for ‘mug’.
If your child is school age and has access to decodable readers (books that contain words that can only be sounded out), spend time listening to your child read, providing support to help them apply their knowledge about sounds and letters to the text.
When your child gets stuck on a word, encourage him/her to have a go at sounding out the word. Remember to praise your child when they are successful at working out a word, or when your child goes back to have another go. Never tell your child to ‘guess’ a word or use the picture to help them: always keep the focus on letters and sounds.
Remember that reading at home should always be a positive and enjoyable experience. Developing a love of reading from a young age will last a lifetime.
With a new year approaching it’s a great time to enrol your child in one of Leap Street’s classes – click here to see our range of programs.