2016 Winter Five Star Journal

PARENT POINTERS
Make reading fun
Learn useful tips to encourage your
child to read
Teachers across the Five Star District are
finding helpful ways to motivate students
to read for fun. Encouraging children to read
during their spare time can increase comprehension
and overall achievement across
multiple subject areas.
As we approach the new year, these useful
tips from the Adams 12 Literacy Team can
help reinforce reading as a priority in your
household for 2017:
Read and write
• Read aloud every day.
Make sure your child sees you reading and writing,
whether it’s reading the morning newspaper
or making a shopping list.
• Encourage your child to learn
new words.
Introduce your child to new words every day. Talk
about what these words mean and how they are
used.
• Make time for reading.
Set aside a quiet time each day for reading, and
remember to include “reading time” when planning
daily activities.
• Write.
Encourage him/her to write letters or postcards
to friends and relatives, keep a journal, make a
scrapbook or write stories and poems.
Visit the library
• Help your child get a library card.
• Visit the library frequently and look for
reading programs.
• Help your child select books at the
right level.
If your child is reading smoothly and understands
what they are reading, the book is at
an appropriate level.
Create great reading habits
• Keep it fun.
Don’t set rules about reading for a certain amount
of time or reading a minimum number of pages,
and don’t make reading a punishment — keep
it fun so that it’s something your child wants to
keep doing!
• Talk about what your child is reading.
Ask your child to tell you about what they are
reading. Libraries may also offer book discussion
groups for children or online book chats
with authors.
• Listen to audio books.
If you will be spending a lot of time in the car or
at home, rent books on tape or CD from the library,
and listen to them together. This is also a
great way to encourage language development,
or encourage children with learning disabilities
to enjoy stories.
Talking with your child about the stories they
are reading or listening to in audio books, and
encouraging them to learn new words, are
just a few ways to help make reading more
enjoyable. For more helpful tips, read Helping
Your Child Become a Reader, a parent booklet
co-created by the Child Research and Study
Center & Reading Department at the University
of Albany and the Department of Literacy at
the State University at Cortland. •
Five Star Journal | page 15