Does your child have a fear of reading? Is it enjoying reading, reading aloud, reading comprehension or a mixture of all three?
In this blog, I’m going to share with you a few things that might be useful to try, both at home and at school, if your child has a ‘fear’ of a particular area of reading. Reading takes two forms; actually reading and comprehension (understanding and interpreting what you read). These tips help with both, as when children become more confident readers, they often become more confident comprehenders.
We need to remind our children that not every lesson is a test, in fact each lesson is a chance to learn something new and show how good we are at what we already know. We should support our children to do this so that they then feel confident, secure and motivated to learn.
1. Lolly Stick Lights – as children read, give them a lolly stick which is green one side and red the other. Let them use the lolly stick to follow the words as they read aloud to you and all the time they are confident in how to decode a word they have the green side showing. When they come to a word that they are struggling to read, they flip the lolly stick to the red side and this indicates that they need some support. When I used to listen to children read, they sometimes became embarrassed if they had to ask me how to say the word or they would make a random guess which then didn’t make the sentence make sense and, in turn, they then didn’t know what was going on in the story. This simple tip will give your children the confidence to share when they are struggling without having to make a big deal of it.
2. I Read, You Read – Never underestimate how much children of all ages love being read to. Even when your children are in Key Stage Two, they love to be told stories (my classroom day always used to end with me reading to the children). This technique is simple. You read the story but pause at a word you know your child will be confident in reading. Ask them to read the word and help you out. This will boost their confidence as the fear of reading the whole page aloud goes and you are picking words that your children will definitely be able to read. You could stop at the word and make out you’re not sure how to read it so they are the ones who are then helping you. Sounds simple but it’s really effective in making your child more confident to read.
3. Wordless books – I always talk about the value of using wordless books with older children because they’re amazing. Why not pick up one of those when you’re reading together and tell the story together in your own words. The fear of having to decode the words is then gone and children can then enjoy telling the story themselves, which in turns helps with their comprehension skills.
I’d love to know if you try any of these and if they have an impact on your children feeling more confident with reading. Comment below with your thoughts.
