Asking Questions as you Read

Before, during and after reading a text with your child, engage their curiosity by having them ask questions as they read. Some questions or prompts that may guide your child to ask more questions are...

• Preview the text before reading by looking at the title, cover, blurb on the back and the first couple pages. Have them think about what they know about the topic, genre, or series and make a prediction about what might happen in the book.
• While reading ask who, what, where, when, why, and how questions.
• Ask questions about what may come next in the story and make predictions.
• Ask how a character might be feeling and why or why a character may have acted a certain way or did a certain action.

Retelling and Determining Importance Flipbook

In this activity, your child will identify the key elements of their story, such as characters, setting and plot. You will need a piece of paper and scissors. First, fold a piece of paper in half and on the front of the flap draw or cut a line so that you have two sections, one for characters and the other for setting. Next, open the flap draw or cut three sections for beginning, middle and end. This can be used for students who are reading picture books to retell the entire story. If students are reading chapter books, they can use this strategy to retell chapters of the book. Start with the characters and setting, then move to beginning middle and end. Support your child in identifying only the most important parts in the beginning, middle and end. Have your child start their answers with the following prompts:

• The characters are...
• The setting is...
• In the beginning...
• In the middle...
• At the end...

Using Feelings to Help Us Determine Character Lessons

While your child is reading have them pause when a character begins to change the way they are feeling, or they overcome a challenge in the book and think, "What did the character learn from that change or challenge?"

• Readers can mark pages with Post-its when the characters have big feelings in the text. After they have read, they can go back to those pages, reread them and then identify the character's feelings, why they are feeling that way and look at how the feelings change throughout the book. Ask your child, what did the characters learn from these changes?
• Have your child identify the conflict or challenge in the text and ask, "Did the character learn a lesson after overcoming this challenge or conflict?"
• Ask your child if they learned a lesson from the story that relates to their own life.

Echo Game

Choose a book at your child’s reading level and read a sentence aloud using appropriate expressions and pauses. Have your child mimic you, reading the same sentence and using the same expression and pauses. Repeat the game every few paragraphs as you read through the book.

Act It Out

Find a book that has a character talking. Have your child read their characters conversations repeatedly so they can sound like the characters they are portraying. If a book has characters having a conversation have your child practice with a family member or friend and each person can be a character. Ask your child how the character is feeling and to read their dialogue with that feeling. Prompt your child to reread to support them reading smoothly with meaningful expression.

• Suggested Books to use for this activity: Mo Willems Collection

Record It

A fun way to practice reading and build fluency is to have your child create her own audio books. This can be done simply with a tape recorder or audio recording feature or app on your phone. Your child might need a few "takes" to get his reading just right. Sharing your audio recordings with family and friends is a great motivator!

Go Fish

Create a deck of cards with each letter on it. You could also include two letters combinations that make one sound (digraph), examples- 'ch', 'sh'.  Play the game of “Go Fish” but ask for the card by letter sound, NOT the name .

Making Words

Write 4-10 letters on small pieces of paper, be sure to include at least one vowel. See who can make the most words with the letters given

Extension: Have your child write the words on paper.

Word Chains

This activity will support your child in practicing using spelling patterns to write new and nonsense words. Begin with a word your child is familiar with and have them write that word at the bottom of a page to create a ladder going up, or at the left side of the page to create a chain moving horizontally. Once your child has written that word, give them a new word with a different beginning or ending sound and have them write the new word. Your child can practice different vowel teams or change words using long and short vowel sounds.

For example:

• day -> say -> pay -> play
• mat -> mate -> mute -> flute

Adaptation: Instead of telling your child the new word you could give them the meaning of the word and have them find the word that matches the spelling pattern and meaning.

Break Apart Sounds in a Word (Segment)

Say a word that has up to 4 sounds.  Your child can count the number of sounds on their fingers. You can also use small objects such as pennies, chips, tokens, buttons, etc. Line them up in a row and move each object up when they hear the separate sound.

For example: s-t-o-p (4 sounds)

Blend 4 Sounds

Think of a word that has 4 sounds – ex black (b-l-a-ck) or stop (s-t-o-p) and say the sounds slowly.  Have your child blend the sounds together to say the word. 

Take the Sound Away

Discuss the names of the people that are close to your family. Say, “I will take away the first sound of one of their names and you have to guess what the name is!” Continue to do this with missing beginning sounds and then try with missing ending sounds.  If a child is having difficulty, you can use small manipulatives for each sound as discussed above (ex- blocks, pennies, buttons, coins, etc.) The parent and child can also switch roles.

For example: parent says "Rank" and the name is "Frank"

When Coming Across New Vocabulary With Your Child While Reading

Say the word and have your child repeat it. Offer a kid-friendly definition with a couple examples in sentences. Get kids thinking about the meaning by acting it out, finding examples of the word around you, drawing a picture of the words, having students come up with sentences. Have the child recall the word again.

Play Yay or Nay

In this game, you will choose a vocabulary word that you and your child have discussed and that they clearly understand the kid-friendly definition of. Yay will mean true and Nay will mean false. Provide examples and nonexamples of the word by using pictures or sentences. Your child will say 'Yay' if it is a correct example of the meaning of the word or ‘Nay’ if it is the incorrect meaning of the word. Students can also give thumbs up or thumbs down. Encourage your child to challenge themselves and come up with their own examples and nonexamples of the words once they understand the game.

Act it Out

When your child has learned a new vocabulary word have them write the word and draw a picture of it on an index card or Post-it. You could post the words somewhere in your house that the entire family can use the word. Invite everyone in the family to add their new vocabulary words to the wall and purposefully try to use those words in conversations.