Frequently parents say to me that reading with their child is a frustrating and unenjoyable experience. I want to help you change that!

Here are my 10 best tips:

1. Make sure you have a routine so that children know when reading time will happen. Make it a comfortable place where they have the book in front of them and you can see the words too. Read daily as a rule unless you are having a particularly bad night.

2. Children enjoy books that are easy for them to read and have a high interest value. Stumbling through books is unenjoyable and not confidence building. Be in the moment and both enjoy it, laugh about it or talk about it.

3. If books coming home are too hard there are a few things you can do. Tell the teacher and have books monitored is the obvious one. If it’s just an occasional book then read it to your child or with your child…let them read the easy bits. Helping them by reading a paragraph first and having them copy you can also help. It’s a bonus because you are modelling fluency and expression!

4. Give the child a handle on the book before they start reading it by looking at the pictures together and using some of the vocabulary in the book as you talk to them and guess with them what might happen in the story. This will make the reading easier when they start.

5. Children use  three main cues when reading: meaning (does it make sense?), structure (does that sound right?) and visual (does it look right?)  Don’t rely solely on visual cues to help your child. Frequently sounding out the whole word will slow down the reading and take away from other cues such as meaning and structure.

6. PAUSE when your child comes to a problem.  WAIT for the child to realise it doesn’t make sense, sound right or look right. Research shows we give children less than one second on average before butting in. We sometimes need to give 3-5 seconds of waiting before prompting or helping because they may be able to problem solve it themselves.

7. PROMPT  after waiting. Say things like…what is the hard bit? does that make sense? what’s the first letter? can you see it in the picture? have a guess? If they don’t get it, then tell them…don’t make them feel bad about it.

8. PRAISE – this is the most important thing of all and builds a positive attitude to reading….say things like you read that bit with great expression! I love the way you went back and read it again! Go and read that to grandma, it will knock her socks off!

9. Allow them to make some errors and ignore them, just like you did when they were learning to talk. Too much interruption spoils the story! Keep it moving most of the time and share the ‘fun’ experience.

10. Finally, remember that you don’t have to be the teacher, just the loving parent. You are a role model! Read a good book or newspaper and let them see how much you enjoy it!