Reading Aloud
12 June 08
Did you know that the simple act of reading aloud with your child could boost his future reading success?
Reading aloud allows your child the opportunity to acquire necessary verbal skills, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and a familiarity with the basic purposes and mechanisms of reading. By age six, children understand 13,000 words, and children who are spoken to and read to frequently have larger vocabularies and develop into stronger readers.
Your big kid needs interactive reading that draws his attention to letter shapes, names, sounds, and words. He also needs exposure to a rich variety of books that will stimulate the mind and instil a love for reading!
Interactive reading
Your big kid is getting more and more sophisticated in his understanding of language. Choose a book to share that is simple but includes the examples of the interesting language elements your child is tuning in to, such as rhyme and rhythm. As you read together, try these ideas:
- Point out letters and words your child knows. Encourage your child to look for words he knows.
- Move to it. Movement stimulates language development, so enjoy movement inspired by the story.
- Play word games. Ask your child to count out the syllables in words. Or leave off the final words of rhyming lines, inviting your child to fill in the blanks.
- Ask predictive and analytical questions before and after readings. This type of interaction can expand your child's understanding of words and his comprehension of story sequence.
Here are some other tips for your big kid’s reading:
- Don’t make story time a reading lesson – it’s a time for sharing, relaxing and fun.
- Don’t expect too much too soon when your big kid learns to read stories for himself. It takes a long time after they can read before they read well enough to really enjoy the stories they are reading.
- Allow your children to choose books they like to read, even if they are not your choice.
- Help children find books about their interests, for example, if they love dogs, cars or dinosaurs, look for books on these topics.
- Don’t worry if your child likes comics as he gets older – it is all part of reading. Once they are a confident reader they are likely to want to move on to reading different things.
- Many children (and adults) like to return to old favourites from time to time, even when they can read much more difficult stories. This can also happen if children are unwell or unhappy because familiar loved stories can help them to regain a sense of security and wellbeing.
