Research has shown that there is a strong relationship between children’s literacy experiences in the home and reading achievement. Further, it is suggested that family involvement in a child’s education is a more important factor in student success than family income or education. There are many ways that parents can support the literacy development of their children. Listed below are several suggestions.

How to Help Your Child’s Literacy Development:  Tips for Parents

Writing  (Writing reinforces reading.)

  1. Encourage early writing attempts such as scribbling and drawing.
  2.   Ask the child to tell stories or describe a family picture. This may include naming the people in the picture or telling what the event was (e.g. birthday celebration, a festival or special holiday, family reunion, birth of a new sister or brother, family trip, a pet or favorite toy).  Help the child select a title for the picture.  Paste the picture on a  large sheet of paper.  Write the caption (title) under the picture.  Record the story that the child tells about the picture in sentences.  This will help the child with the skill of finding the main idea when reading as well as with writing and oral language development. 
  3. Have  the child to help prepare the family shopping list, even if all the words are not spelled correctly. The child could also look at advertising circulars and  magazine or newspaper ads, as well as product labels and coupons to match the picture with the item and to see how to spell the name of the product. Thisactivity will help with vocabulary development, organizational skills and  connecting writing to their daily lives. 
  4. Have the child to write thank-you letters or create their own thank-you cards for gifts received from family members and friends.  This will build communication skills and help to establish a life-long etiquette skill. 
  5. Have the child to write directions for a favorite game or for how to make something.  You and your child together may also write down favorite family recipes and make these into a book.  Copies could be sent to family members.  Both activities will help with reading and following directions as well as connecting reading and writing to informational purposes.   
  6. Have your child use a combination of drawing, dictating and/or writing to write his opinion about a book he has read, stating whether he liked or enjoyed the book and why.  This will help the child get in the habit of being able to give reasons for his opinion, a skill needed in critical analysis and reflective reading and thinking.
  7. When you return from a family vacation trip, have the child to draw and/or  write about his favorite part of the trip and to explain why it was his favorite part.  This will help with paragraph development by supplying supporting details which will, in turn, help with the reading comprehension skill of identifying supporting details in a paragraph or passage. 
  8. Help your child make a book about his or her family describing something that each family member does or has accomplished.  This will help instill family pride and connect reading to the child’s real life. 
  9. For older children, let them compose their own stories and poems about a topic of their choosing.  Children love to choose their own topics to write about.  If your child likes to draw, encourage him or her to illustrate their stories and to give their characters dialogue. Also, encourage older children to research a topic they are interested in, and either write a detailed report or develop it into a comprehensive project.

Reading   

Reading to Your Child

Reading to your child is one of the best things that a parent can do to lay a firm foundation for the child’s literacy development even before a child is ready for school. It has the following benefits:

  1. It exposes a child to the language of stories (e. g., Once upon a time . . .)
  2. It increases a child’s vocabulary by exposing him to new words.
  3. It ignites the child’s imagination.
  4. It helps create a love of books and an interest in reading.
  5. It helps to foster early reading development as a child does “pretend reading”.

Once a child begins formal schooling  and is learning to read, the parent can support the child’s literacy learning by listening to his child read and talking about the story after the reading. For the primary grades, have the child to retell the story in his own words. His retelling should include where the story took place (setting), who the characters were, what they were trying to accomplish (plot), and how they finally resolved the problem. If the child has difficulty or if some of the elements are missing, prompt him by asking such questions as:  What was the story about? Who was in the story? Where did the story take place? What happened in the story? Have the child read the part aloud that answers specific questions. 

Following these suggestions will help your child to be able to focus on the key ideas and details that make up the structure of stories and thus will improve his comprehension when reading literature. To model expressive reading and to help improve his oral reading, take turns reading pages aloud from the story. Taking on the voices of different characters will help the story come alive, as well as acting it out. It is also useful to have the child to reread the story after the shared reading to improve fluency and comprehension.

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