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Why children need to read and how parents can helpAdvice from Dyslexia Action

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The most avid reader reads in two days what the most reluctant reads in ayear.

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The amount that someone reads makes a difference not just todevelopment of reading ability, but to the growth of vocabulary and generalknowledge.

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What you know is directly related to the amount that you read.Children with poor reading skills and habits are in danger of low educationalattainment. What can be done to prevent this from happening and how canparents help their children?

Read, read, read!

Books are the source of most of the new words that children learn once theyare in school. Of course, children learn new words from television and throughconversation, but the research shows that the majority of new vocabularycomes from books.Research has also shown that children who read more have widervocabularies. This is not just to do with social advantage or intellectual ability -research has found that the beneficial relationship between reading ‘volume’(amount) and vocabulary is not affected by a child’s intellectual ability.

An Early Start

Getting off to an early start in reading helps children quickly pick up the skillsthey need to expand their knowledge and vocabulary. These two areas arekey:1. Good early phonics-based teaching of word-decoding skills. This meanshelping the child to recognise and understand the sounds that lettercombinations make.2. Supporting and encouraging children to engage with reading.Being able to decode is not enough - unless a child gets practice andexperience of reading, he won’t capitalise on those decoding skills.

Supporting Early Reading

Research shows that children benefit from being read to from an early age, asthis help them learn how books ‘work’ and develops familiarity with writtenforms of language. This knowledge and experience makes things much easierwhen they then encounter print.During early reading children are exposed to printed words and begin todevelop word-recognition skills and start to see links between sound andletters. This ability, which is know as phonological awareness, is a vitalfoundation for building fluency of reading.

Struggling and Reluctant Readers

For those children who find it hard to master the principles of decoding, earlyintervention is important, a more serious learning difficulty may be theproblem. The longer a child is left struggling the harder it is to improve theirskills.Big factors in developing reading are confidence and motivation. There aremore and more books with high interest and lower demands on independentreading skills which are very helpful for providing practice and developingconfidence in reading. The Waterstone’s Guide to Books for Dyslexic Kids hasmany suggestions of suitable books.

How to help a child with reading:

Reading to a child

– this improves listening skills, broadens interest inbooks and improves vocabulary.2.

Shared reading

- the adult reads and the child joins in - is very useful.Encourage your child to join in by :- Discussing the books content with him- Discussing the pictures and asking him to describe what ishappening or might happen- Running your finger along the line of print as you read- Suggest your child joins in by reading some words- Asking your child to retell the story in his own words.3.

Supported reading

- this approach encourages the child to read to theadult and can gauge whether the child is able to read most of a book (nineout of every ten words). Encourage this by:- Looking at the books and pictures together- Asking the child to suggest what the story is about- Selecting two or three words or main characters to talk about- Allow a child time to work out words (it is recommended that yougive the word after five second)- Helping with accuracy. Encourage your child to check guesswork bycross checking letters in a word.4.

Over learning

- this may seem tedious to you it is actually good to read achild’s favourite book over and over again. This helps to build familiarityand if a child has a poor short-term memory it reinforces his understandingof the story.5.

Silent Reading

- children need the opportunity to read alone. Youngchildren need time to browse and more skilful readers need independenceand time to develop fluency. Encourage discussion about books the childhas read, not only what the story was about, but also weather it was agood read.