Making Reading a Family Affair

Selecting a Book: Getting the Right One

• Take a ?walk? through the book, looking at pictures and discussing what the book is about.
• Choose a page and have your child read it. If there are many confusing and difficult words and your child does not understand what he/she is reading then the book is too difficult.

Before Reading: Getting a Running Start

• Find a comfortable place to sit together.
• Make real life connections with the book by talking about things your child has done that are similar to those in the book.
• Ask your child what they already know about the topics in the book.
• Ask you child what they think will happen in the book or what they will learn about.

During Reading: Getting the Most from the Book

• If your child has trouble with a word, do not immediately tell them what it is. Ask them to sound it out, break up the parts of the word, reread the sentence thinking about what word would make sense, or give them clues. To help with understanding action words, act them out.
• Make your child the word solver.
• Stop your child every few pages and ask them to tell you what they have read.
• Have your child reread favorite parts. Have them use different voices for different characters.

After Reading: Getting Beyond the Book

• If your child has read an informational book, have them share three new things they learned about the topic.
• Have your child share parts of the book that surprised them or made them wonder.
• Reread the book taking on the roles of the different characters. Make it FUN!
• Talk about other books you might get by the same author or on the same topic.

Possible Questions for Fiction

• Where have you been that is like the setting in the story?
• What is the story mostly about? How do you know?
• What lesson(s) does this story teach?
• Why is the title a good one for this story?
• Tell me the order in which the main events happened in this story.
• What surprised you about the story?
• How is the character?s life like yours?
• What questions do you have about what you just read?

Possible Questions for Nonfiction

• What are three new things you learned from reading this?
• How could you use the information you just read about?
• What surprised you in this book?
• What words are new to you?
• What questions do you have about what you just read?