I just don’t know what to do to help my child learn to read! This is the biggest complaint that I hear from parents. A close second is, but they don’t like reading with me. I remember reading with my dad in kindergarten. I hated it! More specifically I hated not being able to read perfectly when I read with him. This is usually what makes reading with parents (or getting homework help from them) such a struggle. Your children love you and don’t want to disappoint you. They need to hear regularly that you don’t expect them to read perfectly and you are just happy to read with them. Here are my ideas on making reading less of a struggle and teaching them to read at the same time. A big part of getting children to read regularly at home has to do with access, choice, time, and space.

Let’s start with access. Kids need access to reading material. What a blessing, that there are so many community libraries here in Canada! The best way we can show our appreciation for these libraries is to use them. As well librarians are trained in helping you find books that are the right fit for your child and they are happy to help. Personal books at home are also very helpful. Even if your child is a beginner reader and most of the books are at a higher level, they can still get a lot of benefit from having regular and easy access to these books. First of all reading pictures is an early literacy skill that helps build a strong foundation for more advanced literacy skills. Of even more value is when parents and other caregivers read to early readers. Children not only develop a love of books, stories, and reading (more foundational literacy skills) they also have many reading strategies modelled to them when they listen to books read to them. These reading strategies are then absorbed by children and they will automatically use them without even having to make a conscious effort to do so. Just as you use them automatically and may not even be aware of what they actually are. Reading to your child on a regular basis is the single best thing that you can do to help them develop strong literacy skills. Yes, it’s as easy as that! Even if your child isn’t a beginning or developing reader and many of the books at home are at an easier level they are still of value as they provide your child with a choice of reading material.

Children love to choose books to read and have read to them. Visiting the public library on a regular basis and letting your child choose books to take out is fabulous motivator for getting them to read. If your child is choosing books that are not at their reading level, you could always ask for a compromise, and say for every hard (or too easy) book they choose, you would like them to choose a good fit book as well. Of course early readers have less choice of good fit books but if the book is bit beyond their level then you can always share the reading. They read the words they know and you read the other words. Or you read most of the words and stop on words that you believe they know or are able to figure out. For example, you can stop on words that are easy to guess based on pictures or context. This is a reading strategy that successful readers use. You can also stop on words that are common sight words (the, of, look) or words that are easy to sound out. Library visits coupled with a personal collection of books at home provide children with lots of choice of reading material.

The most reliable way to help your child find the time to read is to develop the habit of reading at a particular time of day. As adults we rarely forget or struggle to make time to brush our teeth. That’s because it is built into our getting ready-for-the-day and getting-ready-for-bed routines. When my daughter was young we made a habit of reading before bed. Actually it was before getting ready for bed. This seemed to make getting ready for bed less of a fight for a child who felt there was too much fun to be had and sleep got in her way of getting all the fun she could out of her day. Different times will fit differently for various families. Mornings could be a nice way to help children who are slow to wake up start their day. You could climb into bed with them and start reading an old favourite. By the end of it they will probably be awake enough to then share the reading of the next and then read one short book on their own before getting up and getting on with their day. As working parent, I understand that it can be challenging to find the time to read with our children. However, if it’s a priority then we can do it.

Having a quiet reading space is important as well. Even though I have been reading for decades and have lots of practise at it, I get distracted by things like conversations, television, loud music, and mom requests. Children don’t think that they are distracted by television, video games, and music but brain research suggests differently. Music or television is just the sugar that makes the medicine go down. Ideally children should read in a quite space with as little distractions as possible. Although my daughter and I co-created an attractive reading corner in her bedroom, her favourite reading place was cuddled up next to me on the couch. She often prefers to read while walking around the living room by herself. She is a very active child and sitting still is what she does at school so she avoids it as much as possible at home. In small homes, finding a quite space may require a quiet time for the whole family, ear plugs, and/or a book lamp for reading in a closet. Have your child try a few options and choose what fits for them. Not only do kids like to choose their reading material, they also love to choose their reading location and position!

Good habits aren’t necessarily easy to develop but they are worthwhile and have pay-offs. With reading the pay-offs are immense. Reading provides access to information, entertainment, life-lessons, and life-changing wisdom!

Although it isn’t a super common question, I have been asked a number of times, “Why didn’t my child get an A in (insert the subject here)?”  Now if a child typically gets an A in that subject, typically meaning more than once or twice, and it is an area this child has a learning strength in then it is a fairly logical question and there is usually a straight forward reason. However when a child has mostly A’s and there is only one or a couple of subjects that the child didn’t get an A in then I always think to myself, why would they get straight A’s? No matter how “with-it” a child is when he comes to school, we simply can’t expect him to “exceed expectations” in every area. In fact, there is a certain risk involved if we expect a child to get straight A’s.

That risk is the risk of lessening our child’s love of learning in order to foster their love of achievement. Now I don’t think that there is anything wrong with fostering a love of achievement in our children, but I do think it is a shame to do it when it comes with the cost of dampening a love of learning. How does the expectation of consistent A’s take away from a love of learning? When a child is more concerned with getting an A rather than learning, they avoid taking on learning risks and challenges. For example, after giving my grade 7 students a list of criteria of what they need to show me they have learned for an end of unit project, I would often give them the freedom to choose how they would like to show me that knowledge and those skills. They might demonstrate their learning with an essay, a skit, a song, a poster, a chart… well you get the idea. There are many ways to demonstrate what you learn. Now this is a great opportunity to try something new. Very often my typical “A students” would stick to what they were used to, an essay and/or a poster board presentation, or maybe even a PowerPoint presentation. (It’s been more than four years now since I taught grade 7 so I’m sure that students would be more apt to use technology now than they were then.) More often, it was my typical “B” students who would see the project as an opportunity to test their hands in an artistic or unique manner of representation. Sometimes they would miss some of criteria for demonstrating their knowledge because they got so caught up with pursuing their project but they usually had a really creative and innovative project and often their projects did include all the criteria too.

Learning should be about trying out new things and taking risks. Often my daughter comes home with some lofty idea for a project that she is working on and I often feel dubious about what the results will be. However I keep my mouth shut about my doubts and stick to asking her questions about how she plans to do this or that. It can be tough to keep my opinions to myself. As well, it’s has been tough to resign myself to the idea that she might not get an A on the project if she is trying her hand at something that is not her strong suit. However her learning is her learning, not mine. I am grateful that she loves learning and she loves trying out new things and being creative.  I want her to keep her love of learning strong and to continue to being willing to try, try, and try!

Learning is not about being perfect. There is a time and place for perfect presentations. It is a great attribute to want to do well. B’s are great grades too and if students can’t take learning risks in elementary and middle school then when will they be able to? I think that the years leading up to grade ten are a terrific time for children to try out new pursuits and ways of learning. After grade ten if does make more sense to treat school as a job. Although even in the working world, it is still good to be willing to take on learning risks and challenges.

Here is a great video that demonstrates the power of valuing our failures! It was also my inspiration for this blog post.

Summer learning loss has been well documented for decades. Students who struggle with learning tend to be the most vulnerable. In fact we know that three different things happen for children in the summer. Some children regress in their learning skills. They can actually lose more than two months of learning in reading and math each summer. From grades 1 to 6 this would result in more than a year of learning lost! Some children hold fairly steady with their learning over the summer and return to school with the skills they basically left with. Other children actually gain learning ground and return to school with a learning advantage. What is the difference? Much of these differences can be attributed to the amount and quality of educational experiences a student has over the summer.

At a very minimum, if we want to prevent summer learning loss there are a number of educational experiences that we can provide our children that cost very little money. Children should read, write, compute, play, and connect. Joining a library reading program can be a great way to make sure children read throughout the summer. Children can keep a journal over the summer. Even if they don’t write it in every day, they could have a set day of the week that they write in their journal each week. A simple way to practise math skills is to play math games or solve a word problem each day. For math game ideas, click on the “learning games” tag for this blog under Categories. More and more research has been coming out over the past few decades to support the benefits of play. Large amounts of time spent watching movies, television, playing video games, texting, and surfing the web, take away time for play. Set limits on your child’s “screen time” either daily or weekly. Children make connections in so many ways. Connections help deepen and solidify learning. One of the best ways to help your children make connections between subject matter, themselves and others, or their personal lives and society at large is to talk with them. Family dinners can be a great time for discussions. Additionally, reading books together, watching movies together, and visiting museums and art galleries can help foster enriching conversations that help your children make connections. Teach Yourself’s book Help Your Child Succeed at School gives lots of solid information and advice on having enriching interactions with our children.

Recently, I heard that children with educational summer experiences tend to academically outperform their peers in high school. The best way to ensure that your child does not lose any ground this summer and returns to school in September with a learning gain is to make sure that they have an education plan for the summer. Especially for children who struggle with their learning in school, this gain can help bolster their confidence which in turn improves their learning capabilities. Below are two forms that you can use to help children stick to an educational plan. The “Make a Daily Schedule” form helps you and your child plan out their activities. This can be done 1-4 times a week or you can increase the time allotments and use it for the entire week. The “Student Report on Daily Work Schedule” is to be completed at the end of their learning sessions. Younger children will need more guidance. This reflection helps solidify and deepen their learning and is a great way to report to you.

Make a Daily Schedule
Student Report on Daily Work Schedule

I came across a great article on stepping back and letting our children learn through failure. It can be hard as a parent to watch our children be frustrated but if we step in to help them, we rob them of valuable learning experiences. I highly recommend this article, The Importance of Failure.