Helping Your Child with Reading
There are many different ideas about the best ways to help children learn to read, or help struggling readers. Some consistent suggestions include: reading aloud to children, providing lots of opportunity for children to practice their reading with material they enjoy, and developing vocabulary - the number of words a child knows. Some books we recommend for learning more about how a child acquires and builds reading skills, include:
Suggestions from these educators are included on a handout we developed with tips for "
Ways to Help Your School-Age Child with Reading." The handout is linked here as a PDF file, for easy viewing and printing.)
Some websites with literacy activities and advice for parents:
- Read Write Think - http://www.readwritethink.org/
Use the search tool to find fun interactives and online resources that promote comprehension, critial thinking and other literacy skills.
- Reading Rockets - http://www.readingrockets.org/
A national multimedia project, Reading Rockets offers research-based and best-practice information on teaching kids to read and helping those who struggle. Includes section on the ABCs of Teaching Reading, free reading guides and other resources for parents and teachers.
- Thinkfinity - http://www.thinkfinity.org/
Find activities and games to play that foster literacy skills. Search by subject or age level.
You can also find in our collection CD-ROMs that help children practice reading skills.
The library also links to websites for children featuring fun ways to practice reading skills.
For additional information, see ...
- Help
My Child Read - http://www.ed.gov/parents/read/resources/edpicks.jhtml?src=qc
Compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, this page includes publications
from a variety of sources with suggestions for how to help a child learn
to read. Some of the publications are produced by the U.S. Department of
Education, such as "Helping
Your Child Become a Reader."
- Indiana
Dept. Of Education - Reading Lists - http://www.doe.state.in.us/standards/readinglist.html
Available as PDF files, the IDoE provides four separate reading lists for
students in grades, K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12. Designed as a companion piece
to Indiana's new academic standards for English/language arts, the lists
illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students
at each grade level. The lists are not all-inclusive, and the the books
on these lists are not required reading for students.
- MCPL Children's Services: Too-Good-to-Miss Books - http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/childrens/booklists/booksbygrade.html
MCPL Children's Services staff recommends some of their favorite stories for children by grade level.
- Novelist Plus - (Need library card to access from outside the library)
Search for stories based on child's interest, age or grade level, or lexile reading level.
- Sight Words
"Sight Words" are words that appear frequently in reading material
for beginning readers. Many of these words are difficult to sound out with
the usual decoding rules and, thus, are good ones to memorize.
For more information about the role of sight words in learning to read, see:
-
"Sight" and High Frequency Words -
http://www.iseesam.com/teachall/text/reading/highfrequency.htm
Explanation of the importance of sight words and standard lists to use.
Dolch Word Lists -
http://www.janbrett.com/games/jan_brett_dolch_word_list_main.htm
Printable lists featuring artwork from children's book illustrator Jan Brett
Fry's Readability Graph - Directions for Use - http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/fry/fry.html
Instructions for how to use Fry's Reading Graph to help determine the reading level of a piece of writing.
