Do

Research shows that reading aloud to your child (even as they grow older), encouraging them to read aloud (even as they become independent readers) and showing them how to use metacognitive strategies increases reading comprehension. The ‘why’ and their benefits are clear. Below are specific tips for how to implement them successfully.

Read Aloud to Your Child

• Take advantage of opportunities to read aloud to your child whenever it fits in your schedule; bedtime is a great time to re-connect, especially if routines have unraveled and sibling conflicts have been challenging. After lunch or during snack time also work well.
• Choose books above your child’s reading level, and consider books that spark rich conversation and expand your child’s knowledge and experience base. Make sure to pause and talk about the meaning of any hard words.
• Encourage your child to ask about any unknown words you read.
• Model fluency, read with expression.
  • Read slowly (adults tend to read and speak quickly) and clearly enunciate. Watching and reading lips helps with comprehension.
  • Use different voices and inflections for various punctuation and speaking roles to help your child distinguish between emotions and characters.
  • Note physical descriptions that indicate how a character speaks. Dialogue in stories helps a child to attribute emotional states to people.
• Explain idioms, figures of speech and expressions. Many children’s books use idioms (For example, “Our teacher’s a saint”, “My nerves!”. First ask your child what they think it means, then explain it concretely to them.
  • Idioms are a great way for children to learn the social language skills that we use in our daily interactions.
• Demonstrate your own metacognition by thinking aloud as you read, “I wonder why she told her friend she couldn’t play after school? What do you think?”
  • Ask a higher order comprehension question (“Why” and “How” questions) every few pages to improve engagement. Ask your child to provide supporting details from the text which can come from words, pictures or inferences.
  • Encourage the process of thinking over accuracy.
  • Rephrase your child’s response so they hear their thinking twice.
• Reframe the read-aloud as a reader-listener collaboration. Allow ample time for questions, tangents and ‘nonimmediate talk’. Research shows that story-time interruptions benefit a child’s language development. Back-and-forth interactions are key for language learning.

Listen to Your Child Read Aloud

• Spend time, at least weekly, listening to your child read aloud.
• Encourage your child to read to siblings, faraway family members, pets or stuffed animals.
• Notice when your child reads with expression and praise this – “I love how your voice went up and down when you were reading the character’s voice. I could really tell how excited they were.”
• If your child is struggling with a text, encourage them to read something at an easier level, so they experience what it is like to read fluently.
  • If your child is spending too much time decoding, they will not be reading with prosody and paying attention to the meaning of the text. (Prosody is reading with intonation, rhythm and emphasis on certain words and sentences when reading aloud, which together make for reading with expression.)
  • To help your child find a just-right book for themselves, try teaching them the Five Finger Rule. Ask your child to select a page and hold up one finger for every word they do not know or cannot pronounce. The number of fingers they hold up at the end of the page tells them if the book is the right level for them. (In general, 2-3 fingers is just right; 0-1 fingers is too easy; 4-5 fingers is too hard).

Help Your Child Pay Attention to Metacognition Strategies

• Ask your child to make connections when they read. Try using this script to describe the framework:
  • Text-to-text connection (TTT) – “Text-to-text connections are when what we’re reading reminds us of something else we’ve read before. When we read about Malcolm X in One Crazy Summer, it reminded me of Malcom Little, because Malcolm Little is about Malcom X.”
  • Text-to-self connection (TTS) – “Text-to-self connections are when something in a book reminds us of something in our lives. When we read The Vanderbeekers of 141^st Street, it reminded me of the brownstone building where I used to live in New York City.”
  • Text-to-world connection (TTW) – “Text-to-world connections are when we make a connection between our book and something in the world. When we read Sofia Valdez, Future Prez it reminded me of the upcoming election.”
• Once your child is familiar with the above concepts, you can:
  • Model making connections while you are reading aloud; and
  • Encourage your child to let you know whenever they make a connection when you are reading aloud.
• When your child reads independently, encourage your child to jot the connections they observe on Post-it notes, labeling them TTT, TTS or TTW.
  • Proficient writers can write the actual connection, while early writers can simply mark the page so they can tell you about their connection later on.