Parents continue to be concerned about raising readers. Money is invested yearly in programs and books that guarantee positive outcomes. Creating readers requires developing reading behaviors in children once the basic skills are mastered. Parents do not need expensive programs to do that, no matter how good the sales pitch might sound.
Time Management is Challenging but Should be Taught
Some schools mandate timed reading assignments on a nightly or weekly basis. Challenge the family to set weekly reading goals. Start calculations with fifteen minutes a night for younger children and reach a target goal of thirty minutes for older children. Make a weekly goal by multiplying the nightly goal by five days. Create freedom by allowing minutes to be spread out over the week to include weekends or completed in one day.
Calendars are easy to set up. Once done, these tools assist with time management, accountability, and help demonstrate the pride of success in achieving goals. Giving children this responsibility improves planning skills, reinforces accountability, and allows the child to experience the challenges of time management. If a homework assignment has a specified schedule of minutes, approach the teacher about allowing the child to have flexibility and explain the reasons for the request.
Parents need to model and teach strategies for planning, self discipline, and accountability. Eventually these skills will be applied across the curriculum. For the purposes of this article, instruction provides the discipline required to develop solid reading skills despite the other calls on a child’s time. Adults demonstrating the same commitment and balance can be a strong motivator. Children will imitate what they see more than what they are told. Parents who are readers help to create readers.
Engage in Reading Conversations not Test Preparation
While reading comprehension programs are full of questions to ask children, they rarely demonstrate to children why questions are asked. One of the quickest ways to shut down a conversation with a child about a piece of literature is to have the conversation sound like a reading quiz. Few adults converse about literature by having other adults quiz them on the relevant details of the book. They have conversations about content.
Skillful parents can demonstrate the kinds of questions, concerns, frustrations, reactions, predictions, and comparisons one makes while reading. Instead of quizzing a child talk, about the questions that are challenging for them to answer. Demonstrate what the vocabulary means and respond with high quality answers about material being shared. When children see parents modeling this behavior, it is a model they can imitate correctly.
Become the Model for Reading Comprehension
Use a story that is being read aloud, a newspaper article, a television show, or a movie to demonstrate comprehension skills. There are plenty of opportunities that come naturally in a day. It does not need to be forced. Children benefit from seeing how adults use reading comprehension skills in real life situations. Helping the child to form these connections is the next step. Encourage connections and build new skills on the old.
Use the vocabulary the child will hear in the classroom so that it becomes familiar. If the child has frequently been taught to make predictions or compare books, these words will not be unfamiliar when an assignment is given at school. The same is true of other comprehension skills. The more experience you have, the easier it is to do. Give them solid models and experience to work from and they will work from confidence.
Provide Encouragement and the Tools to Continue Reading
Stay involved with the reading process even as the child becomes more independent. Do provide children with a variety of reading materials to help the child gain skills that come from reading different genres. Continue reading aloud to children as this is a way to continue teaching comprehension skills long after decoding skills have been mastered. These are all means to provide a child with the behaviors necessary to become a life long reader.
Sources:
Wilhelm, Jeffrey. Improving Comprehension with Think-Alouds: Modeling What Good Readers Do. New York: Scholastic, 2001.
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