25 Ways Parents can Read with Children

1. Encourage your child to spend time reading every day.
2. Help your child get into the library habit.
3. Make reading easy.
4. Read aloud to your child
5. Use tried-and-true teacher tips to help your child become a better reader.
6. Give your chid a wide range of experiences, which are the foundation for understanding what she reads.
7. Relax your family's bedtime rules occasionally. Once a week, let your child know he can stay up as late as he wants-as long as he's reading in bed.
8. Look for unusual places for your daily reading time with your child.
9. Have a family contest to determine "The Most Unusual Place I ever Read." Take pictures of family members in their favorite reading hideways.
10. Schedule time to read aloud.
11. Squeezing reading into a busy day.
12. Start a family library so your child can ejoy favorite books again and again.
13. Invite a "guest reader" to read to your child.
14. Make sure a book is on your child's reading level.
15. Turn your whole house into a reading lesson for your very early reader.
16. Limit your child's TV time. Studies show that kids who spend more than 10 hours a week watching TV do worse in reading than kids whose parents set limits on TV viewing.
17. Give your child practice reading directions by following a recipe together.
18. Make your child a reading detective. Write clues that send your child from one part of the house to another.
19. Try a newspaper scavenger hunt.
20. Play "alphabet concentration" with a child who's just learning to recognize letters.
21. Schedule a "reading dinner."
22. Teach your child to find information.
23. Promote reading wven if you're not a good reader yourself.
24. Encourage an older child to write a letter to a favorite auther.
25. Don't make it an issue if your child seems to lose interest in reading.

Promoting your child's love of reading is one of the most important things you can do to put your child on the road to school success.

25 Ways Parents Can Help Children Read is one of six booklets in The Parenting Series, published by The Parent Institute, P.O. Box 7474, Fairfax Station, VA 22039-7474, (800) 756-5525.

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