7 Strategies You Can Use to Improve Your Child’s Reading Skills

If you love reading to your child, you should know you’re contributing immensely towards their cognitive development, making lifelong core memories for them to cherish and strengthening the bonds you share. But alas!  All good things do have an end, and you may not be able to continue reading books to your child forever. At some point, they’ll need to start doing it on their own, and familiarise themselves with the world as individuals. But fret not; reading alone encourages children to interpret information themselves, form their own ideas, and develop self-discipline.

If you’re looking to enroll your child into secondary school in Singapore, you must ensure they have the requisite reading and writing skills needed for their age. Without proper reading, there can be no good writing. A child who can read and understand is a child who will write. This is doubly important for secondary school because this is usually the time young learners begin to tackle longer exams and submissions. If you think there’s still some scope for improvement with respect to your child’s reading skills, there are a few things you can do before you pay their secondary school fees in Singapore.

Here are tips for using to improve your child’s reading.

Reading Skills: Tips to Improve a Child’s Reading

There are several things parents can do to help their kids read better. They might be learning to read or struggling independently, but these strategies are lifesaving.

1. Start a Reading Routine

Putting aside time daily to read with your child improves their vocabulary skills, comprehension, and recognition of familiar words. If your child isn’t showing much inclination towards reading, create story time sessions where you read with them. This makes them understand the importance of reading, which becomes more amplified as they learn to read more without your help.

2. Encourage Reading at Home

Keeping books in the house will certainly pique a child’s interest and encourage them to read. Make sure you have books on shelves and baskets in different rooms for easy access, but ensure they are accessible at the child’s level. This way, they won’t need your help to take out a book whenever they want to read.

3. Lead by Example

You are your child’s role model, and your young one will emulate the majority of behaviors you display. For instance, parents who read every night before bed encourage their kids to follow suit. Again, if children see their parents reading for entertainment instead of watching TV, their attitude towards books changes.

4. Find Books that Interest Your Child

Some kids remain uninterested in reading because they dislike the content. However, with so much virtual content available, there’s bound to be something that catches your child’s fancy. You can identify their preferred genre or recognize storylines that speak to their interests. Get them books to read on the same; they’ll love it. But still, ensure you expose them to different genres and stories to expand their knowledge base.

Children love science fiction, adventure stories, and mysteries. So, factor that in when selecting books to add to your home library.

5. Use Other Reading Materials

Books are great for encouraging reading but are not the only option. For instance, if you and your young one love baking, have them read the instructions. Or if they love cars or bikes, get them magazines. Even when you’re driving them to school, encourage them to read road signs and explain what they mean to you. 

6. Stay Involved in Your Child’s Education

Kids need good grades to enter IB schools. One way to ensure that happens for your child is to keep up with their schoolwork. Teachers deal with many students and may struggle to identify individual reading difficulties. At the same time, some learners are good at masking their problems, especially where group studies are involved.

If you notice any difficulties, deal with them immediately to allow your child enough time to overcome their inadequacies. Involve teachers to make them aware and to get help coming up with solutions.

7. Be Patient

Constant care and attention get students to where they should be in terms of overall development. A lot of children are unable to fortify their reading prowess in primary school, and these issues can seep into secondary school if dealt with slowly. To prevent that, get study materials about coping with reading difficulties as a parent. Don’t shun books by educational experts; they offer solutions that can help you better equip and enable your child. 

Activities to Develop Reading Skills among Students

Children learn differently, but there are fun ways to capture their attention and increase their interest in reading. Practical ideas for parents and teachers to incorporate at home and in class include:

• Displaying words and letters around students
• Creating word families
• Playing word identification games
• Finding a pen pal
• Finding a book version of their favorite movie
• Creating a positive environment for reading

The ultimate goal is to encourage children to read more and love it through and through. Using games and fun interactions eliminates boredom and encourages students to want to read independently.

Reading Strategies In and Out of the Classroom

There are seven cognitive reading strategies for students. These strategies encourage questioning, inferring, visualizing, and monitoring-clarifying. 

Paying Attention to the Visual Clues

Children use images and visual clues in written materials to create a picture in their minds. Encourage your child to look at visual clues in the text to see if it’ll be easier to decode. 

Sounding Out Words

Children struggling to read certain words should break them down phonetically. Let them say each sound separately and aloud. This will help them understand sounds and how they interact.

Summarising

This strategy means students understand the content without reading everything. Summaries help children get critical information or phrases in the text and leave out anything irrelevant. 

Questioning

By asking questions before, during, and after a reading session, children learn to clarify meanings and understand what they read. 

Predicting

Students use written and visual clues to predict what happens after reading the text. This strategy helps children become more confident in understanding stories and piecing clues together.

Story Mapping

This strategy is perfect for use with fictional texts. Teachers and parents use templates to represent characters, themes, plots, and settings visually.

Comprehension Monitoring

This involves students’ ability to identify when they understand written material and when they don’t. Students also know what strategies to apply to improve blocked understanding. 

The Benefits of Reading for Children

The advantages of reading to your child or having them do it themselves are endless. Notable benefits include:

• Improved cognitive development
• Better language skills
• Preparation for academic success
• Improved bond with children
• Improved discipline and concentration
• Cultivated everlasting love for reading

Reading and writing are key aspects of learning in and out of the classroom. Parents and teachers play a seminal role in ensuring young learners understand what they read and how they process written texts. Being patient and starting a routine are highly effective ways to promote reading skills among children. If you notice delays, work with teachers to develop specific reading plans for your young one.