How to help your elementary aged child gain skills in reading
You probably know what I’m going to say—the first thing everyone recommends for reading in elementary school: kids need to read at least 10 minutes a day, at least 5 days a week. But does your child like reading? Look forward to it? Or is it a chore that you fight over and often don’t end up accomplishing? I think the actual goal is to raise a child that loves reading, or barring that, likes reading, or barring that, is able to tolerate reading and occasionally chooses to read a very compelling book. Is pinning them to the couch for 10 endless minutes a day the best way to accomplish this? I think no.
Some kids just really really love stories and have a hollow leg for being read to when they’re small. These kids might tip into avid readers as soon as reading is easy enough (second or third grade). For those kids all you really need to do is provide tons of reading material (no easy task) and be supportive.
Some kids are more medium or lukewarm about reading. The work involved is overwhelming and the stories aren’t compelling enough. They need some strategies to help them like reading time and not dread it.
The last group of kids really really doesn’t like reading or anything to do with it. They are challenging because often they are super negative about reading and draw you into an argument about it, and next thing you know you are also being negative. Everyone hates reading time and most of the time it’s easier to skip it. We need to end the cycle of fighting over reading and bring at least a neutral attitude toward it.
For all three types of readers my number one suggestion is to start when they are pretty young (kindergarten age or even younger) and just do a ton of positive story exposure. Family read alouds are awesome and such sweet memories, but they aren’t the easiest thing to implement in real life. I highly recommend family read alouds, but the easy way to accomplish a similar thing is audiobooks in the car. I LOVE audiobooks in the car. There are so many reasons why, but number one is they are so so bonding. When you are all listening to the same book you can talk about it together. When you get out of the car maybe the conversation turns to predicting what happens next in the story, or you look forward to getting back in the car to hear the next part. Dinner conversations can be about something funny or sad or anything from the current story. It generates a nice feeling of community within the family and is easy to do. I started with books from Beverly Cleary and Roald Dahl. Laura Ingalls Wilder was a favorite as well. There are so many books you might remember from childhood or perhaps there is a movie you can all watch together at the end of the book—Because of Winn Dixie? Then you could have a nice conversation about how the book and movie are the same and different, and what you might have added or taken away from the movie adaptation.
This is the world’s longest paragraph, so reason number two gets a new one. The other tremendous benefit of audiobooks in general, but in the car in particular, is that listening to chapter books is a great way to introduce a love of stories and the attention span required to focus on them. It is an easy easy step for the child to passively listen to a story without any sounding it out or anything, but they are still practicing the skills of focus and attention. And, hopefully, they enjoy it. Love of reading, around the corner.
You may not know this, but it is years before your child’s reading ability catches up to their reading comprehension. This means that in third and fourth grade, maybe longer, there is a gap between the hardest book they can physically read and the hardest book within their grasp to understand. You can bridge this gap by maintaining a steady diet of delicious audiobooks in the car and reading practice time should be books within their skill level. You want the practice books to feel possible, not a lot of work, but you also want your child to love reading, so they need both forms for several years.
Ok so we still need to talk about the 10 minutes a day of reading practice. I highly recommend doing this with your child. Sit next to them and do it with them. In the beginning when they are still sounding things out you read the hard words and demonstrate how to decode them (this “e” on the end makes the “I” say its name) quickly and move on. As they can read more and more words gradually move to taking turns with paragraphs and then pages. I read the left page and you read the right page. And then if there is a picture on your page you get a little break and that’s fun, but also sometimes I get a picture and you have to read twice in a row. Make it a friendly game, as positive as possible, and keep it very very light. This is just something we have to do every day like brushing your teeth. Choose books where your child can read about 90% of the words or more and gently help them when they get stuck on a word. When you’re in this stage it feels as though you will never be done, but one day maybe you’ll see your child sneak a book under the covers, or catch them reading in the backseat, or they might ask to go to the library. When you reach the point where they get in trouble for reading too much I say you’ve graduated from reading together, and you don’t need to make sure the books they’re choosing are challenging or at the right level. Fluency is excellent and reading easy books never killed anyone.
If you are lucky enough (ha!) to have a child who never reaches the stage of wanting to read on their own I would recommend just keeping up with the suggestions above (audiobooks in the car and 10 minutes a day of reading together) through all of elementary school, during the school year and during the summer. They are gaining fluency, getting practice, reading is becoming easier, and not everyone loves reading. However, everyone needs to be able to read and understand in middle and high school to succeed in class, so it’s a non negotiable. Your child may never love reading, but these steps will help them have the skills they need to succeed.