1) Book Cover – When you sit down a new book, try figuring out the story the front cover. If there are featured characters or some sort of motion happening, ask your child questions. This allows him/her to exercise imagination and come up with original ideas. It doesn’t matter if it matches the actual story – Let their ideas run free!
2) Book Design – Help your child understand how much work goes into creating a book. At an appropriate understanding age, introduce them to the Author, Illustrator, Publisher, Awards, and even read the dedication if there is any. The more you interact with the book, the more personal and meaningful it will become. After all, you want your child to fall in love with reading!
3) Questions – Allow time and room for a lot of questions. Don’t expect to have all the answers. Just allow your child to express whatever comes up! Don’t hesitate to prompt for and engage their questions – Ask them what they think. The goal is to help them have original thoughts and conclusions.
4) Trips – This one may seem like a little bit of an extra step, but you could further enhance the reading experience by taking the child to a museum, a movie, or to a park or zoo to let them experience the subject and content of the book even more closely. For example, if the book has a giraffe at the center of the story, then you could take them to the zoo to see the giraffes. If you’re reading a book about trains, you could take them to a museum. Be creative!
5) Support – Almost the most important one of all is using positive reinforcement and a lot of verbal encouragement for their reading efforts and skills! Children thrive well in a supportive environment so don’t waste any opportunities that arise!
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