If you think you are not a good reader, here are some ideas to overcome reading challenges.
- Tell stories about your experiences.
- Tell stories about pictures in a photo album.
- Sing songs or nursery rhymes that you know.
- Listen to books on tape.
- Take your child to story time at the local library.
- Ask someone else to read to your child.
- Improve your own reading skills.
How to choose a great book
- Consider the interests and experiences of your child.
- Select books that are recommended.
- Read books that your child asks to have reread over and over again.
If your child often says “I don’t know”
- Ask child to point to picture or word that answers your question.
- Stop before the end of a book and ask your child to tell you the ending he would like best.
- Watch a TV show or movie of the book. Then, read the book. Ask your child to tell you how the book and movie are the same and different.
If your child becomes restless
- It’s okay to stop reading at any point in the book.
- Come back to the book at the point you left off.
- Try a different book.
- Stop to talk about a picture to which the child is pointing.
- Hold your child’s hand in yours and write a word from a book together.
- Encourage your child to “read” along with you as you point to the words.
You don’t feel like you have enough time
- Snuggle while you read.
- Think about how you feel while you read to your child.
- Think about how your child feels when you read to him.
- Think about the reasons that it might be hard to find time to read each day.
- Find ways to make more time in the day to read to your child.
- Ask yourself how you would rate reading with your child.