How to Read to Your Child: 4-5 Years
Reading to your child is one of the most important things you can do as a parent. Betty Bardige, from Talk to Me, Baby, said, “The more children learn about words and stories, books and other uses of print, and letters and sound, the easier it will be for them to read.”
Reading not only builds a child’s language abilities, but builds a foundation of early literacy skills. We have compiled a list of helpful strategies to guide you in creating meaningful and educational moments while reading with your child.
Encourage Print Awareness:
Draw attention to the text by pointing to the words as your read them
Draw attention to the direction in which you read the words and pages (left to right/top to bottom)
Help your child to understand that each word has a meaning and that together they tell the story
Work on identifying letters, help your child to understand that each word is made up of letters that represent different sounds put together
Encourage Phonological Awareness:
Demonstrate syllable counting, explain that words can have more than just one part (clapping is a great strategy to use when counting syllables)
Find rhyming words within the story, explain that two words rhyme when they sound the same at the end but have different sounds at the beginning
Talk about the beginning sounds of words, ask them to identify the beginning sound in simple words such as, “tea,” “bee,” “day,” etc.
Dialogic Reading: discussing books to encourage a deeper understanding of the story and aspects of literacy:
Prompts:
Completion Prompts:
Leaving a blank at the end of the sentence, all the child to it in
Used in rhyming and repetitive books
Recall Prompts:
Questions about a book the child has already read
Open-Ended Prompts:
“Tell me what’s happening in this picture.”
“I would what’s going to happen next....”
Wh- Prompts:
What, where, when, why, how questions
Distancing Prompts:
Connecting things in the book to the child’s real life experiences
“What did you dress up as for Halloween? What do you want to dress up as for Halloween?
Imagine that the parent and the child are looking at the page of a book that has a picture of a fire engine on it. The parent says, "What is this?" (the prompt) while pointing to the fire truck. The child says, truck, and the parent follows with "That's right (the evaluation); it's a red fire truck (the expansion); can you say fire truck?" (the repetition).
Literacy:
Title
Author and illustrator
Pointing to the words while reading
Pointing out letters and their sounds
Comment to tell us your child’s favorite book! Find below a list of our favorites to read to the littles that visit our clinic!
ProActive’s Favorite Reads:
Nibbles: The Book Monster by Emma Yarlett
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Numeroff
Chicken Big by Keith Graves
Dog Breath, Dogzilla, and Katkong by Dav Pilkey
Can I Join Your Club? by John Kelly
Duck On A Bike by David Shannon
