How Can I Make The Most of Reading With My Child?: Part II

According to Stacy DeBroff, It's never too early to start reading to your child. Once your child reaches school age, take time out of every afternoon and evening as possible, to work on the reading skills your child is learning in school. Below continues the suggestions on how to make the most of reading with your child:

1. Encourage your child to tell his own stories and write them down.

2. Challenge your child to come up with alternative endings to the stories you read together.

3. Ask your child to predict what will happen next.

4. Discuss whether the events in the story could really happen.

5. Discuss the moral of the story, as this gives a chance to impart values and ethics.

6. Reread your child's favorite story again and again.

7. Never take away story time as a punishment. Instead, offer extra reading time as a reward.

8. Don't stop reading together once your child starts school.

9. Ask your child if they find the character interesting and believable.

10. Ask your child if he/she relates to any character in particular.

11. Find out if your child knows whether the story takes place in the past, present, or future.

12. Find out if your child knows which characters are the main ones and which are supporting.

13. Teach your child the personal obstacles the characters had to overcome.

14. Ask your child what he/she learned from the story.

15. Ask your child the major conflicts in the story.