Read rhyming books, stories, and sing songs with rhyming language.
Play word games. For example: How many words can you think of that rhyme with "cat".
How many sounds can you hear in "stop". (s - t - o- p; 4 sounds)(r - o - ck; 3 sounds).
Tell your child the sounds of a word and have them guess what the word is. Switch roles.
For example: What word is s - u - n?
Have scavenger hunts for alphabet letters. Children can look on cereal boxes, billboards, newspapers, etc.
If there are letters your child seems to have trouble with, have them look for as many of that specific letter as possible after writing it in the air and saying its name.
Ask your child what sounds they learned in school. See how many words you can find together with that sound. Notice whether the sounds comes at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the words. You would be amazed at the discoveries you and your child can make about language together.
If the book seems to be a big struggle for your child, it is probably too hard. Reading books that are too hard does not help children learn to read faster. It frustrates them and likely doesn't lead to a positive experience with books.
If the books your child brings home from school are too hard, talk to the teacher. Ask the teacher to help by suggesting books that readable for your child.
Look for books with rhyming words or repeating sentences.
As you are probably aware, children love to hear favorite stories over and over again. Reading favorite stories again and again helps to increase fluency, which is essential for reading success.
Rereading familiar books also increases your child's confidence in his/her reading ability.
Asking this question helps to reinforces the idea that the story should make sense.
When your child misreads a word, ask them if the sentence makes sense the way they read it. Does it match the picture? Does it have the right sounds to be the word they said?
When they realize that the sentence didn't make sense, talk about where it stopped making sense. Use word structure, letter sounds in the word (beginning, middle, end), and illustrations to figure out the word.
Once you figure out the word, go back and read the whole sentence to make sure your child understands the meaning of the sentence.
Start with simple questions about who the characters were and where the story took place.
Progress to more complex questions like why a character did something or what would have happened if the character had made a different decision.
Make this a special time you spend with your child so that they will look forward to reading. Read aloud to them from books that are still too difficult for them to decode, but not too difficult for them to comprehend. This helps to increase your child's listening vocabulary, which will lead to an increase in the reading vocabulary.
The more time your child sees you reading and writing, the more likely they are to want to do it themselves. Desire is a very powerful motivator.
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