Read Me Another Story!

It’s a familiar scene around the world.  It’s bedtime and the stories are falling off the shelf as your child finds the perfect book for you to read together.  She chooses a book that you have read more than ten times in the last month, but it’s her “favorite” one!  Reading familiar stories is important as it improves her sequencing and comprehension skills.  But you can add in other books to her library as well.  Take a trip to the library and find new books, but read the familiar books too!

When you are reading a new story with your child ask questions as you read.  You may want to ask how she thinks the character is feeling in this situation or you may want her to point to the big red barn with the pink pig that they are referring to in the story.  These checkpoints will assess her comprehension as you are reading.  You can also quiz her to predict what will happen next.  You could even make a prediction too.  Then read on to find out if either of your predictions turn out to be true.  It’s fun to make silly predictions too, just so your child can see that it’s ok if your prediction doesn’t come true.

After the story is finished, ask your child a few questions.  You can ask her what her favorite part of the story was or what she would choose to do if she was the character.  Have her recall a few elements of the story (what happened first, in the middle or at the end).  If your child needs assistance, have her take a peek back in the story to “check” if she can’t remember. 

All of my children just loved reading books at this age.  We read during all times of the day- not solely at bedtime.  One of my friends even had a system set up where her son would stand by the bookshelf and move his finger along the books and say, “Ready, Mom, tell me when to stop!”  Then my friend would shout “Stop!” and they would read the book that his finger stopped at!  What a clever idea! I am  proud to say that I started doing that in our home after hearing about it!