The importance of reading to children early and often is immense. This not only creates a special bonding moment between you and your child, but also lays the groundwork for language development, creativity, and imagination.
But did you know that there is more to reading than simply the enjoyment of it?
If you would like to help to extend your child’s development as a result of reading, then making it interactive will also help to improve their language skills.
Asking these type of questions during story time, when your child is reading aloud or after they have spent some time reading to themselves, will help to really get your child thinking:
- Open-Ended Questions: Ask questions that require more than a yes or no answer;
- Recall Questions: Exercise the brain with questions, which require your child to remember what happened in the story;
- Prediction Questions: Urge your child to use their creative side by asking what might happen next;
- Ask Who, What, When, Why, Where, and How questions, requesting evidence to back up their answers if they can too!
Extension activities take reading to a whole new level for any level of reader from the weakest to the strongest and are another way that you can make reading fun and interactive. Extension activities extend the experience of the book after it is finished and help children in many ways.
Putting extension activities into practice doesn’t need to be difficult, you don’t even need to know the answers yourself, but the benefits can be amazing.
- Getting children excited to read;
- Helping children connect the book to real life;
- Giving children a chance to practice language in a new way;
- Developing inference and empathy skills.
As you know, we have a huge range of books in our school libraries and can help your child to choose books for readers of all levels, from those who struggle with reading, to those who think that they don’t really enjoy reading, to the ablest of readers who are looking for new challenges.
All you need to do as a parent is to keep encouraging them to read as much as possible, and then interact with them about the books that they choose. Just two probing questions per reading session will be hugely beneficial to your child.
Mrs Emmett, Librarian