What can I do for my children to help them become better readers? 

Below are some suggestions to follow while reading at home.

Before starting to read, ask your child what they think the story will be about. This allows kids to predict text and to start coming up with ideas about the story.

While reading, ask students what has happened so far to help them learn valuable summarizing skills. This question can be repeated periodically throughout the text. You can also get students to think ahead about text by stopping at points to ask what they think will happen next.

When the reading has been completed, ask your child to tell what they can remember about the story. If your child has difficulty remembering key parts of the story you can ask them questions like:

§ Tell about the characters.

§ Tell about the setting (time and place).

§ What was the problem?

§ How was the problem solved?

§ What happened first, next, last?

§ What did the author mean when ________ happened?

§ Has anything like this ever happened to you?

Hopefully, these suggestions will be helpful for you as you work with you children at home. Remember that fostering good reading habits at home is extremely important in helping reading levels to improve.