9 Strategies to Improve Your Child’s Reading Skills

• 1- Set a reading schedule 

According to research, giving your child daily reading time can significantly improve their reading skills in a variety of areas, including 

• Vocabulary abilities 
• Learning to recognize familiar words
• Learning to pronounce unfamiliar words 
• Reading comprehension

If your child is still learning to read, including a daily story time routine in their schedule will help them develop a sense of the value of reading, which they should continue to value as they develop independent reading skills. 

• 2- Ask Questions 

You can assist them by asking them questions about their reading. It will aid in reinforcing the knowledge and improve their reading and thinking skills. 

For instance, if you are reading a book to your child about dinosaurs, pause halfway through and ask, “What do you think will happen next? ” or “What do you think happened to the dinosaurs?” It will aid in their capacity to think logically about information.

• 3- Provide plenty of reading materials for children

Children who have a wide variety of reading materials at home perform better on standardized tests. Have a lot of appealing books and magazines at your children’s reading level on hand to encourage reading in them. Put the books on the TV and in the family room, bathroom, bedrooms, and even in the cars.

• 4- Encourage library visits

Take your kids to the library frequently so they can check out new books. Additionally, the library provides reading programs for kids of all ages that might interest your kids and further pique their interest in reading.

• 5- Add Visual Aids

Use books, software, books-on-tape, and other readily available resources to assist your kids in developing their reading skills. Games make excellent choices because they allow kids to have fun while honing their skills.

• 6- Re-read to speed up fluency

Your child must read quickly and fluently to understand the text and foster reading comprehension. This ability is referred to as fluency. Your child should, for instance, be able to read 90 words per minute by the start of the third grade. 

Rereading well-known, straightforward books helps your child improve their word-decoding speed, which will improve their reading comprehension.

• 7- Spice it up with reading problems

Sometimes reading difficulties in children go undetected by teachers until they are severe. Check to see if your kids can sound out words, recognize sight words, identify unknown words using context, and comprehend what they read clearly.

• 8- Hire a Private teacher

As much as you want to help your child with reading, hiring a professional may go a long way and yield better results than doing it yourself. 

A private teacher would simplify the task and support your child as they learned to read, allowing you to concentrate on other things.

• 9- Praise their efforts

Your response will have a big impact on how hard they work to become good readers. Make sure to acknowledge their efforts with sincere compliments.