Reading to children is one of the most important things we can do to develop children’s literacy skills.
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We can read with children from the moment of birth, long before children can understand the ins-and-outs of the stories.
Reading with children needs to be fun. If we restrain children, make them sit still to listen to a story until we have finished, then we are likely to teach them that reading is boring and that will not motivate them to continue to read.
Instead we need to be flexible when we read with children. We can start on any page, we can turn pages before we have finished the words printed on the page, and we can stop at any point.
Sometimes it is better to not read the words on the page but rather to talk about the pictures.
What can you see? What can the child see? Perhaps have a conversation about elements of the picture. Does the picture show a dog? Does the dog look like your family pet? The dog says woof. And here is another picture of a dog. Does this one look like your family pet? I wonder what this dog says.
You can encourage your child to tell you about the pictures. Make up a story about what you see in the pictures and have your child contribute to the story. Weave elements of children’s lives into the story so that it becomes personal.
Children enjoy hearing the same stories over and over again. While you might feel bored with the story, young children continue to learn different things with each repetition. You can pause at key parts of a line and encourage children to fill in the words for you. You can pause and ask questions: what comes next? Pause and talk before turning the page over to see. Deliberately use different intonations and voice volumes to make the story come alive.
You can create suspense (what happens next) by using your voice. You can use funny voices, or different voices for different characters. Your child can copy the funny voice or suggest other funny voices for the different characters.
It can also be fun to make stories together. You can use family photos, pictures from magazines or your children’s drawings and create a book.
There are a range of apps that also allow you to create your own books. You can use these to jointly create a story about your visit to the shops, your family holiday, a visit to grandparents or the picnic you went to at the weekend: ordinary every-day events as well as special occasions.
Children enjoy flicking through a book full of familiar pictures, and particularly when they see themselves in the story.
You can write the words of the story your children tell you and read these words back time and time again so that children learn that the funny looking marks on the paper actually convey meaning.
Organising family routines to include time for reading together is really important. Reading a story (or two or three) at bedtime is a popular way of including stories in children’s lives and provides time for children to calm down and prepare for a rest.
Some families offer recorded stories to occupy their children on car trips. These can be useful but are not as effective in developing children’s literacy skills as the free-flowing interactions you and your children have when reading together.
Above all we want reading together to be fun. The only rule is enjoy your time together.
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