Supporting Reading at Home

If you are a parent, then you know how valuable our time at home with our kids can be! Even as a teacher, you know how much growth you see when parents support your classroom efforts at home! Whether you just have them home for the summer or you are a homeschooling family, there are so many ways to support a child’s reading journey. Reading is such a crucial skill for future academic success, so supporting reading at home is very important. Here are a few great ways to do just that! 

Foster a love for reading within your child.

Some children could spend hours reading, and others really struggle with loving it. That’s totally okay! We can instill a love of reading in children by simply showing our excitement for reading, too. Start with literature that excites them and peaks their interest. One fun way to do this is to take them to the local library to explore the book choices there. Then you can model enjoying reading when you read the books together. You can find more ways to cultivate a love of reading in a child HERE. It also has a free handout with tips you can print to keep handy.

Refer to reading strategies and use them consistently.

There are so many different fun and catchy ways to help readers implement reading strategies. I have FREE posters you to print out and use with your reader when they get stuck on a word. You can find them in my store HERE. When your reader has a foundation of strategies in their wheelhouse, they will be able to better problem-solve independently.

Give children hands-on experiences with books.

Allow children (including non-readers) to hold the books while they are reading or being read to. Let them practice turning the pages, pointing to the words that are being read, and finding words they know in the text.

Practice sight words consistently and introduce new words regularly.

Sight words, or high-frequency words, are words that cannot be sounded out easily. As a matter of fact, Fry’s top 100 words make up 50% of all published text!  Practicing these words, along with a solid phonics foundation, make readers successful. You can find 25 tips and tricks to make sight words stick in my post HERE. You can help children learn sight words with hands-on experiences, music, and fine motor incorporation.

Talk and write about books together.

Before reading a book, have your reader do a picture walk through the book and make predictions based on the title and the illustrations. Talk about what’s happening during the book, try to encourage your reader to make connections to the text, and discuss the ending (or create a new one together!). If your reader is old enough to write, consider creating a reading response journal with open-ended sentence stems or questions for your reader to complete after reading a book. 

Fun story! This summer my son wanted me to read all of the “If You Give A…” books by Laura Numeroff. After reading them, he wanted to write his own book. He drew the pictures, I wrote the words for him. It was the PERFECT activity to show him that he could be an author, too!

Implement guided reading.

One of my absolute favorite ways to support reading is through guided reading. While it looks a little different in the classroom, you can still do this at home with a reader. I’ve created a complete kit for each reading level that has scripted lessons, texts to print and make for that level, a teaching guide, and all student materials needed. You can implement it easily into any routine. With this kit, I can guide you through supporting reading at home with a child.  HERE you can find levels A through J. Guided reading is a research-based reading method that will reach a child where they are. You coach children while keeping them engaged, and I will help you the whole way!

Parents play such an important role when it comes to supporting reading at home. It can be a fun, pleasant experience and a way to spend quality time together. Reading at home always benefits them, and these tips will strengthen their reading foundation to help them progress.

What are your favorite ways to support reading at home? I’d love to hear from you!

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