Make reading fun
Reading at home needs to be fun and easy – something you both look forward to, a time for laughter and talk.
Take your child to the library
Talk about reading
Reading at home needs to be fun and easy – something you both look forward to, a time for laughter and talk.
- find a comfortable, quiet place away from the TV for the 2 of you to cosy up and read for 10-15 minutes
- if you or your child start to feel stressed, take a break and read the rest of the story aloud yourself – keep it fun
- make some puppets – old socks, cardboard tubes, cut-outs on sticks – that you and your child can use to act out the story you have read. Or dress up and make it into a play
- play card games (you can make the cards yourself)
- read songs, waiata, poems and rhymes - sing them together, too.
Take your child to the library
- help them choose books to share
- find other books by the same author or on the same topic (or look for more information on the web – you might have to be the reader for this one).
Talk about reading
- Talk about the story and the pictures, other stories you have read, and experiences you have both had that are like those in the story
- Sometimes you can be the listener, sometimes the reader and sometimes you can take turns. They might like to read to the cat, the dog, their teddy or a big brother
- All children like to be read to, so don’t stop reading to them – no matter how old they are
- Encourage your child to read all sorts of things – the TV guide in the newspaper, street signs, food labels. Simple recipes are great – you get to eat what you’ve read about, too.