Parents and Educators Working
Together for Literacy

Three Ways to Read Aloud

1. Child reads to parent. Your child gains confidence in reading ability. Emphasize your child's positive achievements. Have your child reread the same material to develop more confident reading ability.

2. Parent reads to child. Read aloud to your child to build positive attitudes toward books, to develop an understanding of written language, and to enjoy the sound of spoken language. You may choose books above your child's reading ability. Be sure the books will

3. Child and parent read together. Take turns reading paragraphs or pages in a challenging or long book. Always be positive and lighthearted. Have fun sharing the reading material and your time together! Discontinue the reading if the reading experience becomes tense. While you read the book . . .

• allow your child to spontaneously comment on events and characters in the story.
• discuss the predictions, opinions, thoughts, ideas, connections, and questions you and your child may have.

Encourage your child to spontaneously comment on events and characters in the story. Explore comments or connections that might not yet make sense; all learners' responses are purposeful and show their attempts to make the reading meaningful. Discuss the predictions, opinions, thoughts, ideas, connections, and questions you and your child may have. We know that readers understand books differently, depending on their experiences. Differing ideas add value to conversations about stories. These are natural and meaningful ways to know if your child understands the story. You may have tangible wealth untold: Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold, richer than I you can never be-I had a Mother who read to me. --"The Reading Mother," by Strickland Gillilan, from Best Loved Poems of the People

Signs of Reading Development

• Holds a book right-side up
• Turns pages from right to left
• Interprets pictures and makes up a story using pictures to read Retells a story in sequence
• Mimics and points to print but without voice and word matching
• Memorizes stories
• Begins to gain knowledge of letters and sounds and letter/sound relationships
• Begins to recognize names, words on cereal boxes, labels on toys, names of stores and restaurants
• Finger points to read single words
• Asks questions about what a word is
• Begins to identify common, high frequency words (a, and, the, it, is, will, go, to, etc.)
• Attends to beginning consonant sounds
• Attends to ending consonant sounds
• Uses picture cues to read unknown words
• Self-corrects when something doesn't make sense or doesn't sound right
• Develops fluency with practice

How Can I Help My Child Learn to Read?

Research findings in early literacy have shown that the most important factors enabling children to become readers are:

• exposure to books and literature from infancy
• awareness of print around them (cereal boxes, store signs, freeway signs, etc.)
• awareness of letters, words, labels, and letter sounds in real-life contexts
• 10-30 minutes of daily reading aloud
• regular visits to the public librar
• accessible books that interest children
• time to enjoy books by themselves
• parents/adults who read and value reading
• rich and varied experiences (visits to the zoo, aquarium, museums, fairs, etc.).

Most importantly, daily support from parents and adults significantly increases success in reading.

Few children learn to love books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way.--Orville Prescott, A Father Reads to His Children

What Should I Do When My Child Gets Stuck?

• Ask the child, "what would make sense here?"
• Have the child look at the pictures to see if they give any clues.
• Skip the word or phrase and come back to it later.
• Ask the child, "What word would make sense and begins with that letter?"
• Ask the child, "Do you see a part of the word that you know?"
• Telling the word to the child is okay at times to avoid frustration.

Emergent Readers

Child is learning about print and is becoming aware that print tells a story or gives information. Child uses pictures to retell what is in a book.

Early Readers

Child begins to use knowledge of letter/sound relationships and is developing a sight vocabulary of high frequency words (a, and, the, etc.). Child uses print and pictures to read a story and begins to point to actual words being read.

Fluent Readers

Child is able to read independently and reads fluently for meaning. Sentence structure is varied and child need not rely on repetition or patterned sentences.