Nightly Reading with Your Child

Nightly reading is probably the most ubiquitous homework assigned to elementary students. Believe it or not, there is a right way to do it. How you read with your children can help them flourish as fluent and confident readers or flounder and avoid reading.  

Our Lower School Reading Specialist, Beth Vercillo, has created these step-by-step videos to make the most out of the reading time with your kindergartener and maximize the effectiveness of your reading sessions at home. We hope these videos will teach you best practices for reading with your child each night.

 

Pre-Reading Prep

During Reading

After Reading

 

Glossary of Terms to Use with Your Child

Please begin using the following terms when you read a decodable book with your child. You will be amazed at what little minds can soak up; it’s never too early to start. We will be using the terms in intervention class as well!

  • Title- the name of the book
     
  • Author- the person that thinks up the story
     
  • Illustrator- the person that draws the pictures
     
  • Picture Walk- Have your child describe what they think is happening on each page. This develops language skills and is the time to make predictions.
     
  • Prediction- a guess about what will happen in the story
     
  • Characters- the people, animals, or things in the story
     
  • Setting- where and when the story takes place
     
  • What is the most important event in the story?  This is the event when the problem begins to be solved. 
     
  • Problem-What is the problem in the story?
     
  • Solution-How do the characters solve the problem?
     
  • Text-to-Self connection- What has happened in your life that is similar to what happened in the story?
     
  • Moral of the story- the lesson the author is teaching us