Reading Together

I have found that one of the most effective and least stressful ways to improve a child's reading ability is to read together. Reading with the child helps the child learn words in context, increases sight words and vocabulary, helps them learn the patterns of language and stories, and is fun!

Once I tutored a girl who was not up to her third grade reading level. After reading together for several months, she was reading at a sixth grade level! Reading with a child is one of the most effective ways I know to not only help children learn to read, but to love reading.

Choosing the Right Book - Lists and Guides

Here are some great resources to help you find just the right book for your child. Remember that one of your greatest resources is your librarian. They can be a great help in directing you books your child will love.

• Know your child's interests and how they read*
• Bring your child with you and allow them to help choose the books
• Allow plenty of time to choose books
• Choose several books so that if he doesn't like one, he can try another. 
• Remember pictures books read quickly; get several
• Even older children can enjoy good picture books
• Try a mix - stories and non-fiction books on that topic
• Allow time to read their new books to them soon.
• If you can't stand a story, try a substitute. Your child will sense when you don't like something, so be honest and work it out. I never could get into "Captain Underpants", but "Commander Toad" books were fun. Find something you can enjoy together.
• Have Fun!

Choosing Books for Your Child

After raising four children and being a professional tutor for 40 years, I've learned that if a child is forced to read books he doesn't like, then he will hate reading and do as little of it as possible. So how do you help your child find the right book for him and become a lover of reading?

In school, most children are placed in reading groups with other children at their reading instructional level.

Instructional reading level is the highest level at which a reader is not independent, but has adequate background knowledge for a topic, and can access text quickly and with no or few errors. Think of independent level as the highest level you would ask a child to read with only a small amount of assistance. http://www.uurc.utah.edu/General/ReadLevels.php

Helping Children Learn to Read the Right Way

Lets face it, we live in a culture where left brain skills are valued in our schools, even though the right brained skills of creativity and problem solving are most needed by adults. Most of elementary school is spent in memorizing details and practicing processes. Since most young children learn in a more right brain way through action, pictures, music, and the whole picture, teaching in a left brained manner requires hours of ineffective, boring drill work such as filling in workbook pages. Some children naturally prefer to use their left brain (memorization, numbers, sequencing, listening to lectures). These children are the ones who do well in elementary school. The more gifted a child is physically (athletic), or visually (visual-spacial, creative), the further they will be from the prevalent teaching style of most elementary school teachers. These are the children who will have trouble learning to read. It is not that they are "defective" or "slow", but simply that they are not being taught in the way that they learn. Just as an orange is not a defective apple, these right brained children are not defective left-brained children. The solution is to teach right brained children to read in their natural right brain way.*

This isn't hard, in fact it is fun. It doesn't require special training, just a love for the child and an understanding of the types of learning styles that fit a right brained person.