Active Reading

Model active reading when you read with your child. Talk about what’s happening as you are reading. Stop and discuss any interesting or tricky vocabulary words. Help your child make pictures of the story in his mind. Ask your child, "What just happened here? How do you think that character feels? Have you ever felt like that? What do you think will happen next?" Not only will this develop your child’s comprehension, but critical thinking skills as well.

Ask Questions

When your child reads, get her to retell the story or information. If it is a story, ask who it was about and what happened. If it is an informational text, have your child explain what it was about and how it worked, or what its parts were. Reading involves not just sounding out words but thinking about and remembering ideas and events. Improving reading comprehension skills early (opens in a new window) will prepare her for subsequent success in more difficult texts.

Hey, kids! What time is it?

Regardless of how motivated your child is, he or she will not read if there is not any time to do so. Carve time out of the busy day and dedicate it to reading, both together and on your own. By setting aside specific times, rather than trying to squeeze it in between soccer and dance lessons, you send the message that reading is an important activity, and something your child will enjoy.

Old Favorites

Reread books your child enjoyed repeatedly to them. This can and should include nursery rhymes. Model for your child what a fluent reader sounds like by stopping for punctuation, using the right intonation, and emphasizing important words.

"This Book is Right for Me"

Work with your child to pick their "just right" book to read. They should be able to read 90% of the words on the page correctly. Some schools teach the "Five Finger Rule." Pick a page from the book for your child to read. As your child is reading, count the number of errors. The goal is to have fewer than five errors. If your child has more than five, they need to develop more skills to be successful at reading this book.

Read It Again

Have your child practice reading a book repeatedly to become more fluent. Make sure to pick a book on their "just right" level. Have your child practice reading with expression and check for comprehension.

Word Ladders

On a sheet of paper, draw a ladder with two long sides and up to 10 rungs. Write a word at the bottom of the ladder. Challenge your child to come up with new words by just changing one letter at the beginning, middle, or end of the word.

Word Building Challenge

Provide your child with a set of letters (for example, a, d, g, h, i, l, r, u). Set a timer and have your child produce as many words as they can with the provided letters. Additional variation: Provide the letters from a larger word in a scrambled fashion. At the end, ask if your child can build the “mystery word” as a challenge.

Build-a-word

Prefixes are sets of letters that are added to the beginning of a word, and suffixes are added to the end. Give your child a simple action word, such as heat. Ask your child to think of variations of the word by adding a prefix or suffix. For example: reheat, heated, heater, heating.

Word Mixer

Your child will be deleting or substituting sounds from a word. You can use an object like pennies, cubes, etc. to represent the sounds within the words to help identify the changes being made to the words. Try one or more of the activities below:

• Deleting Initial Sounds - "Say feet."(feet) "Now say feet without the /f/. (eat) "Say blast." (blast) "Now say blast without the /b/. (last)

  More words to try - cat (at), trap (rap), teach (each), bridge (ridge)

• Deleting Final Sounds - "Say Grade." (grade) "Now say grade without the /d/. (gray) "Now say line." (line) "Now say line without the /n/. (lie)

  More words to try - cart (car), ramp (ram), paint (pain), scarf (scar)

• Deleting Sounds in Words with Blends - "Say sheet." (sheet) "Now say sheet without the /h/." (seat) "Now say clash." (clash) "Now say clash without the /l/." (cash) "Say flake" (flake) "Now say flake without the /l/." (fake)

  More words to try - smell (sell), truck (tuck), sneak (seek), crab (cab)

• Substituting Sounds in Words with Blends - "Say bread." (bread) "Now change the /r/ to /l/. What is your new word?" (bled) "Now say blink." (blink) "Now change the /l/ to /r/. What is your new word?" (brink) "Now say stake." (stake) "Now change the /t/ to /n/. What is your new word?" (snake)

Syllable Walk

Take a walk with your child outside. Identify things you see on your walk and count the number of syllables within the word. Challenge yourself to find things with 2 or more syllables. Your child might need to clap or put their hand below their chin to feel the number of syllables. Examples: sidewalk (2), driveway (2), playground (2), window (2), trashcan (2), neighborhood (3), satellite (3), etc.

Take the Sound Away

You will say a word and have your child count the number of sounds in that word. After they have counted the number of sounds within the word, they can do that number of push-ups, sit-ups, or squats. For example, you would say “how many sounds are there in the word cat?” (3 – c-a-t). Then, your child can either do 3 push-ups, 3 sit-ups, or 3 squats. Continue to identify the number of sounds in the following words – ship (3 -sh-i-p), black (4- b-l-a-ck), throw (3 th-r-ow). Do not forget after they identify the number of sounds to do an exercise for the number of sounds.

More words to try: plate (4), chick (3), shirt (3), flight (4), maple (4)

Words All Around Us

Read books, signs on the wall, road signs, etc. to exposure your child to a wide variety of new words. Make sure to point out words that are not in their everyday vocabulary.

Pass the Ball

You will be working together to identify synonyms (words that mean almost the same) as the given word. One person starts with the ball and picks a word from the suggested list. For example, the person who is starting might say the word “large” and pass the ball to their right. The next person needs to say a word that is a synonym to the word “large.” Some suggestions might be big, gigantic, enormous, huge, etc. After they have said a word, they pass the ball to their right and that person says another word that means the same as large. Once a person cannot think of another word you start with a new word.

Suggestions: large, small, cold, hot, wet, dry, spicy, sour, sweet

Many Meanings

You will pick one of the suggested words and produce as many different meanings as possible for the one word. For example, you might start with the word bat. The person who picked the word tells a meaning for bat. One meaning might be an animal that flies around at night. The next person might say, a thing used to hit a ball. Another person might say when you hit something away from you like a fly. You would continue until no one can think of another meaning for bat.

Some suggested words: bat, lap, spring, check, light, park, scale, tap