I don’t know about you, but when I haven’t done something for a while I need a bit of refreshing before moving up to full throttle. Like the time I was rear-ended and it took me a few days to feel comfortable driving again. Or when I took the grandkids bowling and had to remember how to take those four steps while swinging my arm properly. It had been a long time.

School has been in session for a few weeks. Your kids probably had a great summer and hopefully they read on a regular basis. Still, they haven’t been reading with the same intensity they will now every week day. They need to practice their reading skills every evening. Right now would be a great time to do a fall tune-up of reading skills and understandings. Here are a few things you might do:

  • Take a quick tour through the alphabet and test for clear sound knowledge. Go through the vowel sounds, both long and short, pay attention to y and w and check for blends and digraph sounds too– br, fr, sh, ph and other tricky sounds.
  • Play a few quick rhyming games to remind your reader that rhyming words sound the same at the end.
  • Clap the syllables of a few longer words to help your reader remember about syllables and word parts.
  • Read through a few beloved books that are virtually memorized to practice reading fluently.
  • Find some words with three or four syllables and practice finding known parts. Do you know the “part” in department? Can you figure out the rest?
  • Remind your reader to take full advantage of clues to meaning such as the details in illustrations. “Is George eating the spaghetti?” Then, when you get to the word ‘spaghetti’, reading it will be a breeze.
  • Give your reader adequate “wait time” before stepping in to provide a difficult word. If there are clues in the text, allow time to think and make the meaning. Figuring out a difficult word independently is confidence-building.
  • Don’t forget the “walk through the book” that comes before reading. Ask questions that will help make meaning during the reading time. What is the title? Who are the characters? What does it look like the story will be about? What words might we find in a book like this one?

Independent reading is a great way to cement the skills learned during reading times in school. Your support can make a world of difference to your little reader.