Parenting Pep Talk: Maximize Reading Time
Parents are well-aware that children need to be read to before they can read on their own. If you want your children to obtain maximal benefits from story time, however, it takes more than simply reading aloud. “Reading-aloud extras,” according to researchers, help children develop better vocabularies, reading comprehension skills, sound awareness, letter recognition, and overall language. Children whose parents and teachers use engaging reading strategies – as opposed to simply reading aloud – are less likely to struggle with reading in kindergarten. They are also more likely to inherently enjoy reading.
Babies learn to love language through hearing you talk. Parents often instinctively speak emphatically to babies recognizing the way it captures attention. Similarly, children benefit from being read to in an enthusiastic manner where characters are brought to life with voices, gestures, and facial expressions. Engaging your child in this manner is just one reading-aloud extra shown to improve children’s literacy.
Many parents and teachers use books to teach sound-symbol recognition. For instance, a child learns to recognize that the spoken word “chair” sounds a certain way, the object looks a certain way, and the word contains the letters c, h, a, i, and r. Readers can take this exercise to a higher level to enhance learning even further. Help children establish personal connections to a story by asking questions. A parent might say, “That little girl is snuggling and looks comfortable in that big, plush chair. When have you felt that way? Who were you with?” Perhaps the word “plush” was new and introduced in the story. Parents can reinforce new vocabulary and help children remember words by relating the new words to their own experiences.
Another reading-aloud extra strategy is to ask open ended-questions that are plot related. “What do you think will happen next? Why do you think that little boy didn’t want to go to school that day?” Encourage your children to problem-solve and consider the characters’ perspectives. This strategy not only facilitates reading comprehension and language-based skills, it enhances theory of mind – the understanding that individuals have unique thoughts, desires, intentions, and experiences that might be different from one’s own.
Parents and educators should choose books that have “print-rich” details – features that draw a child’s attention to the page such as thought bubbles or words with large font, according to researcher Laura Justice, Ph.D. and author of “Engaging Children with Print: Building Early Literacy Skills with Quality Read-Aloud Books.” Justice has found that these books capture children’s attention more frequently and that preschoolers whose teachers talked about print — for example, verbalizing how we read from left to right — were better readers and spellers by the end of first grade.
The Department of Education suggests that you try to read with your child for at least 30 minutes a day. But don’t force it. You want your children to enjoy reading. Young children can be read to for a few minutes at a time, multiple times a day. If there is an off day and it gets missed, don’t panic. Try to reinstate positive habits when you are able without connecting reading with stress. Model good behavior by indulging in your own books. Many parents will find that these strategies make reading time more enjoyable for themselves as well as their children. You connect, aid in learning, and get to hear more about your child’s unique take on the world. Children love when the focus is on them and when their perspectives are shown to be as important and powerful as the words on the page.
Dr. Jaime Black is a licensed psychologist practicing in Westchester and New York City. In addition to providing general mental health services, Jaime works with individuals of all ages on the autism spectrum, doing psychotherapy, conducting evaluations, and facilitating social skills groups. Visit www.spectrumservicesnyc.com, e-mail JaimeBlackPsyD@gmail.com or call (914)712-8208.
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