How to Help Your Child to Develop Reading Skills?

As we are about to head into the excitement of long summer holidays, you can make your child’s reading more fun and effective. Reading at the primary level is very different from the middle school level. By the time children reach middle school, their reading requires learning of more complex skills—reading at this age is all about finding information and exploring sources, analyzing content and using it for problem-solving.

Reading should be a fun activity for your child. S/he will begin to understand what they’re reading and will start applying that knowledge in other places and across subjects. Here are some guidelines you can use…

Effective Ways to Increase Child's Reading Skills

Let’s have a look at some of the activitiesyou can use to attain success in strengthening your child’s reading skills:

• Read aloud a variety of content to your child. Use books of different categories, both easy and difficult, to enhance vocabulary and fluency. Sometimes you should read while your child just listens, and at other times encourage your child to read along with you.
• Keep the dictionary handy, instead of a mobile app. Encourage use of a dictionary at all times. Help your child maintain a folder on the computer or a little diary, with all the new words learned. These can be later used in creative writing.
• Before reading a particular piece of text, ask your child to think about and visualize what you are about to read. Later ask him/her to write a short summary.
• In between reading, encourage your child to use their imagination. For eg., while reading, stop in the middle and ask them to predict what will happen next.
• Encourage note taking while reading. Ask your child to sit with a notebook. Make him draw a line dividing the page into two. Towards the end of the reading session, he can write the main ideas and keywords on one side and details on the other side of his memory. [Know - 10 Playful Ways to Improve Child's Memory]
• Let them highlight text while reading. Model the skill first by guiding them to highlight only the relevant point, vocabulary, key characters, dates or details.
• After you have read the text, have your child identify and retell the causes of actions or events and their effects.
• Identify and retell the sequence of events.
• Use simple story frames, like before reading has four questions ready –“the problem of the story is, this is a problem because, the problem is solved when, in the end.” After reading, have the child answer these questions.
• Another way of using a story frame is by simply having three sections to answer – beginning, middle, and end.
• Then there are charts that specifically set the purpose of reading. There are three questions to answer here – “What I know, what I want to learn, what I learned”. The first two can be answered before you begin reading and the third after the text has been read.

Always remember, reading is a habit that needs practice and support.

Were these tips helpful for you? What methods do you use to encourage your child’s reading habit? Tell us in the comments below!