14 No Nonsense Ways to Help Your Child Read Better

As the former Secretary of Education William Bennett, once wrote, children learn to read by reading. Many American schoolchildren, however, read ten or fewer pages a day for school  and homework combined.

Your child will not become a really strong reader with such a limited amount of experience. He needs to be reading at home everyday. Especially if his homework is light, non-existent, or it's summer time, he needs to spend some additional time with books.

Here are the 14 No Nonsense Ways to Help Your Child Read Better:

1. Make certain your child’s reading material is appropriate for his or her level. If not, modify or adjust reading material to your child’s ability level

2. Have your child verbally paraphrase material just read in order to enhance his or her comprehension.

3. Teach your child to identify the main point in the material in order to enhance his or her comprehension.

4. Have your child outline, underline,or highlight important points in the reading material

5. Have your child read progressively longer segments of reading material in order to build comprehension skills (e.g.begin with a single paragraph and progress to several paragraphs, short stores, etc.)

6. Have your child list new or difficult words in categories such as people, food, animals, things that are hot etc.

7. When your child encounters  a new word or one whose meaning is not understood, have your child practice making up sentences in which the words can be used in the correct context.

8. Have your child identify one word each day that is not understood and require him or her to use that word throughout the day in various situations.

9. Make certain your child learns the meaning of all commonly used prefixes and suffixes.

10. Give your child time to read a selection more than once, emphasizing accuracy not speed.

11. Reduce the amount of material your child reads at one time (e.g., reduce reading materials to single sentences on a page, a single paragraph, etc.). Gradually increase the amount of material as your child experiences success.

12. Highlight or underline important information your child should pay close attention to when reading.

13. Make certain that your child learn dictionary skills in order to find the meanings of words independently.

14. Stop your child at various points throughout a reading selection to check for comprehension.



What would you like to add to this list. Leave your comments below.