What you can do to help your child become a reader:

1. Read aloud every day to your child. Twenty minutes is not enough.

2. Model reading. Be a reader. Let your child see you read. Talk about what you are reading at the dinner table.

3. Let your child interrupt you when you are reading aloud. Encourage "dialogic reading" which is asking questions and encouraging discussion while you are reading.

4. Visit your local library frequently. Sign your child up for his/her own library card as soon as he/she is old enough.

5. Turn off your t.v. most of the day. Make t.v. watching a big deal-something to look forward to.

6. Talk to your child.

7. Children under five are encouraged to sign up for Dolly Parton's Imagination Express to receive a free book each month. Sign up at your local library or by visiting http://www.imaginationlibrary.com.

8. What are your experiences/tips/research findings? Add them here. Delete this text and type your own!!

Sources

• Beginning to Read: Preschool - Grade 2 This is ready-to-do-NOW activities. Practical activities. Print this guide, keep handy at the kitchen table, and go through it a little each day/week.

• A Child Becomes a Reader (Birth through Preschool) This 36-page guide is worth printing as it gives you so much information and terminology you will want to know as the parent of a young child.

• A Child Becomes a Reader (Kindergarten through Grade 3) Again, this guide is worth printing and getting to know as so much valuable information, practical activities, vocabulary are included.

Print Resources

• Jim Tresease, The Read Aloud Handbook. New, in 6th edition published in paperback July 25, 2006!!

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