Supporting Your Child's Reading
Research shows that children who are more interested in reading do better at school than those who don’t read for pleasure. Studies also found that parents who talk to their children about books, TV programmes and films help keep their children interested in reading.
Here are our 10 tips to support your child’s reading:
- Let your child choose what to read, rather than choosing what you think they should read. This is so important!
- Read yourself! Modelling a regular reading habit makes an incredible impact in a child’s attitudes to reading.
- It is not just about books. Encourage your child to read magazines, comics, newspapers and the internet as well as books.
- Buy books as presents. Don’t forget TV tie-ins and books about interests such as computer games or bands.
- Join your local public library.
- Read together. Try picking reading material about interests or hobbies you share, like your football team or a place you have visited together. It doesn’t have to be for long; 10 minutes is enough.
- Talk to your child about the types of reading they think they will be asked to do in school; get them to explain to you what they already know about different types of non-fiction (factual writing), and try to match them to the subjects your child does at school.
- Chat about which books or magazines your child might read, to learn more about their interests and how they may link into their reading within school.
- Try some skimming and scanning together. Skimming is when you read through a piece of text quickly to find out what the main idea is; scanning is glancing through a piece of text to find a specific piece of information. You can do this with a newspaper – perhaps ask your child to find something out for you. Why not ask them to scan a newspaper for news about a favourite footballer or to find out the weekend weather, or get them to skim read a recipe to tell you the basic steps?
- Is your child struggling on certain terms? Help your child to work out what an unfamiliar word means by getting them to read the rest of the sentence and look for clues. Context is always key!
For more information, see the PDF below.
