Your children learn essential reading skills at school. It is at home, however, that you have the opportunity to really help them excel at reading. Practicing reading with your children reinforces what they learn in school. More importantly, you can teach your kids to view reading as a fun activity, which they look forward to doing.
Be a Reading Role Model
Set a good example for your children by exhibiting a love for reading yourself. Get a good book, curl up on the couch and enjoy reading the story. It is a lot easier to convince children that reading is fun, when you enjoy it.
Provide the Tools to Succeed
Help your children succeed at reading by providing them with interesting books and a good dictionary. Take your children to the library or a bookstore and let them pick out books that interest them. Children are more willing to read books on topics that they find interesting.
Buy a dictionary for your children to look up words. Directgov recommends choosing a dictionary that contains a lot of pictures. Pictures stimulate a child's imagination and make the book appear more fun.
Teach the Benefits of Reading
Teach your children that reading is a useful skill to have. A good way to do this is to respond to one of your child's questions by getting a book on the subject. For example, your child asks you, "Where do penguins live?" Instead of answering the question, say, "Let's get a book and find the answer." Together you can discover the answer through reading the book together.
Making Reading Fun
Make reading a fun family activity. Gather the family together. Have each family member take turns reading a page of the book aloud. Show enthusiasm when reading and listening to the story. Talk about the story after reading time is over. The University of Michigan Health System points out that the added benefit of reading together as a family and talking about the book is that it opens up the lines of communication between children and their parents.
Another way to make reading fun is to have a family writing night. During the family writing night, each family member writes a story on a subject of their choosing. Then, each family member reads their story to the rest of the family. This activity develops reading and writing skills and is fun.
Praise
Praise your children often about their reading efforts. Children, who feel positive about themselves and feel their success and effort is recognized, tend to learn better, according to the University of Delaware.
