Elementary School Reading Tips
How can I encourage my child to read more?
Encouraging older kids to read is sort of a tough thing. You're going to find that some kids love to read and they do it naturally, and other kids hate it. One of the tricks is finding something that they want read. And so again, I am such a huge fan of series. If you can find a series that your child likes and will read you're so lucky, because if they're long series you can keep them reading forever. So keep up that quest for things that you like. Talk to their friends, talk to their teachers. Go to the library, look at the kind of the new, hot books. You can even take them out. Go to readings, go to book signings. Sometimes they'll just get hooked because they met an author and they think that's a cool thing. You've got to make it easier for them to grab a book than to grab the remote control on the tv. And so that's a really hard sell. And I think to expect kids to read when they can watch tv is a hard sell. I would also say no TV in the bedroom. It's a great time to read, before you go to sleep, but if you have TV you're not going to do it, because by then you're tired. And I would say you limit some of those other things. You limit video games, and you limit television, and that makes books a more viable option. Then you've got books, you've got board games, but you don't have to decide ‘Ok, I'm not going to watch TV and I'm going to read.” Rather, you think , “Ok. What am I going to do now? I'm going to read.” That's a different decision. So part of it's just setting up your home so that reading is one of the primary activities.
What are some books that might encourage boys to read more?
Boys are tricky when trying to encourage them to read. More girls read, thus more books are written for girls, so this is a hard thing. Boys like to read the gory stuff; they like the R.L. Stine's “Goosebumps” series - the scary stuff. Boys also tend to like movie tie-ins. They'll sometimes like the “Star Wars” books and you can get “Power Ranger” books, too. Boys tend to want to read things that are about movies that they like, and to me, for book reports, we don't give kids books about movies. However, if they're reading for pleasure, then why not? You get a different perspective on it, you get to read the words, you understand what's going on - I think that's fine. Lately they've reissued the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, which a lot of people remember from when they were kids. These books ask you at the end of each page, "Do you go through the door or do you go find the police?" and you make a decision and you turn to a particular page. Sometimes that page leads you to triumph and sometimes you end up dying, depending on the choice that you made. The stories are interesting to read, and they're short. For a lot of kids, especially boys, the thickness of the chapter book is daunting and they never finish anything. Thus, the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books are good, because they want to figure out where they end and they're a little more interactive. I've been recommending those a lot lately for parents who want to encourage their boys to read more.
How do I know whether my child is reading at the right level?
There's a standard benchmark for determining whether or not a book is the right level for a child and the benchmark for independent reading, without an adult sitting there, is 95%. So, you have your child read out loud part of the book that they're reading and if they stumble on more than a word or two for every 2 words then that book is probably too hard. If they read it perfectly it's either the right level or it might be a little too easy. The other thing that I really recommend that parents do, and if they can't do all the time at least do some of the time, is read the books that their kids are reading. They may not read it at the same time. Maybe they will read it at night. Most adults read faster than kids so you can skim through them, and have a discussion with the child about what's going on in the book. I see so many children who read and don't have any idea what they're reading. They will sit and they will hold the book in front of them and they'll swear that they read it but they don't have any idea what happens in the book and that's a problem too. So, just because a child can read fluently it doesn't mean they understand. I've got so many students who can read perfectly who you would think are just lovely readers but if you were to ask them “So what happened?”, they would answer “I don't know. I don't have any idea.” So you definitely want to talk to your children about the book that they're reading. A lot of children still miss out the subtle content even when they do understand. They miss some of the good content. It's so much fun to be able to read books with your child, point things out and discuss the intricacies of the plot etcetera.
Is there a danger in kids reading books outside their level?
The main thing I worry about when kids read books that are too difficult for them - that are outside their level - is that they don't understand them and, as such, the conclusion they reach is that reading is boring. If you're reading something and you have no idea what it means, it is going to be boring. I usually try to pull kids back to their own reading level and leaver the other book until later. That was one of my hugest complaints about Harry Potter: everyone was reading Harry Potter and most of them had no idea what was going on because it was too advanced. I thought, 'Your parents are so excited that you're reading, but you're not getting anything from it because you've no idea what you're reading.' Between the difficult content, the British phrasing and the length of the books, it wasn't useful for most of the kids that were reading it. I try to steer them away from Harry Potter, if I can, and back to their own reading level. If they want to read something like Harry Potter, the should read with Mom or Dad, go back and forth and read together. That way you can talk about it. They can still get the content, they can still read it - I wouldn't discourage a kid from reading it - but that stuff they need a little help with because it's outside their own reading level.
How can I encourage a reluctant reader?
There are too many reasons why kids are reluctant to read. One reason is because it is too hard, and the second is because it's not very interesting to them. To encourage them, you want to definitely let kids read stuff that's at their level. Don't force your child to read a fourth grade book if she's really reading at a second grade level. Instead, try to find some second grade books that are a good fit for her and that she's interested in. All reluctant readers will get there, but children's fluency doesn't increase unless they are reading just a smidge above their level. When a child is reading two grade levels ahead, it's not actually helping their fluency at all. Comprehension might increase, but that requires a whole lot of talking. If they can't read a book properly they don't know what's going on. Reading together is a good way to at least keep reluctant readers interested in books, and try to help improve their skills as you're going along. Try to find books that they are interested in. This sometimes means a lot of hunting: maybe it's non-fiction, maybe it's books about sports people, maybe it's books about actors and actresses, etc. Magazines are great for reluctant readers. I don't actually mind - children can read "Teen People", they can read like car magazines or "Nintendo" magazines. If they're just looking for cheat codes this isn't helpful, but if they'll read the articles, that's good! It's still practice, it's still them doing something; it's them getting information they want from written material. Lastly, comic books are fine. Comic books and graphic novels are becoming really popular and they're good for some reluctant readers who really want short things - but it's still reading, and these are all things that help build skills at the elementary level.
How can I help my child learn to spell correctly?
Spelling is one of those hard things. Some kids are good spellers, some kids are bad spellers. This is part of it; they should read a lot. I can't emphasise how important it is for kids to read; for their comprehension, for their vocabulary, and also for their spelling. The more often you see a word spelled correctly, the more likely you are to spell it correctly. The other thing, and I'm going to hit up a little on some opposition here, is that some people believe in really natural spelling; just let kids spell however it comes out. I believe that if you practice spelling something wrong over and over and over again, it's just going to implant that wrong spelling in your head, so I think we go over spelling with kids. We let them write and get it on the paper and then we go over it with them, we try to explain to them which words are spelled wrong and why, and we try to give them tips to remember how to spell them. We do keep on them and we keep reminding them so that hopefully it will stick. We have spell-check nowadays, so no one needs to be a great speller, but we need to be competent spellers, and I think we want to encourage kids to become that. One thing I really do is, "Just sound it out. Let me hear; sound that out for me. Try to speak it really clearly and sound out the vowels." A lot of kids skip vowels; they just write all consonants, so you want to kind of force them to sound out the vowels. We struggle a ton with 'there', 'their', and 'there', and 'Your' and 'you're'. I just go over it every time; the kids must think I'm just a robot because I'll say the same thing over and over again. I'll ask them, "What kind of 'there' is that?" "Well, it's the 'there' like the 'over there' kind." "Uh-huh. So it's spelled like 'over there' or 'over here' because 'here' is inside 'there'? Okay. Now you've got to spell it for me; I want you to do your paper and find all the rest of them and correct them." I try to kind of push them to self-correct a little bit. One thing you don't want to do is that you don't want to edit your students' papers for them. If you force a child to go back and correct the spelling themselves, they will improve much faster than if you always correct it for them. They want to save themselves work; they're not especially interested in saving you work.
