Supporting you on a reading adventure with your child

Welcome to my reading blog! My goal in creating this blog for parents is to share tips and provide ideas for you to help your child with reading.

I am a reading specialist and a parent of a soon to be first grader named Tim. I plan on sharing how I help Tim with reading as he prepares for first grade as well as blogging about activities that you can do at home to help your child with reading.

I strongly believe that reading should be a fun experience for children which leads me to my first tip.  Tip 1: As parents you can help foster a love of reading by: reading aloud regularly, sharing your own experiences reading books as a child, and engaging in extension activities or experiences that go along with a book you are reading with your child.  

Reading aloud is beneficial in that it supports vocabulary development, listening comprehension and allows you to model fluent reading.  When you share your own experiences with reading, your child is able to view you as someone who enjoys reading and is likely  to develop a positive association with reading.  

Extension activities or experiences can be a fun way to connect with a book and bring it to life. For example, if you read Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey, you could go blueberry picking with your child, make blueberry jam or blueberry pie and perhaps try to can blueberries as Sal and her mother did in the story. 

Keeping reading fun will be a key theme as I share ideas throughout my blog to help your child with reading.  Stay tuned for the next post that will discuss finding out your child’s reading level and using this information to select “just right” books for your child.  

Now, as part of my first blog posting, I thought I would share more information about what inspired me to create my blog. 

This past year, I experienced school for the first time from the parent perspective. Kindergarten was a huge milestone for Tim . . . and for me.

Reflecting back on Tim’s first day of school last September, I couldn’t believe that I was the parent of a Kindergartner! I still remember dropping Tim off at school on the first day. He was so excited! At drop off, he hopped out of the car and he rushed down the sidewalk. When he was about halfway there, he flashed his wide smile at my husband and me and he proudly strode into the front entrance of his new school. Just like that, he was off on his own adventure!

With Tim starting school for the first time, I began to think of my role and how best to support Tim at home. Having been a reading specialist, I was familiar with the Kindergarten Curriculum, the grade level benchmarks, and I knew where to find books and resources to support Tim with his reading. I had some ideas on how to make reading fun for Tim and where to find beginner books for him to read. Kindergarten was the beginning of a new adventure for us–our learning to read adventure was one that we would experience together.

As I thought about Tim and his reading, I realized that I could support other parents in helping their child with reading. This realization led me to create this blog with the goal of offering tips and suggestions that you can use to help your child with reading outside of school. 

My hope is that the information in my blog helps you and your child as you journey through school together. I plan on blogging at least once a week or a bit more often if time permits (we are a busy household!)I hope that you enjoy following our journey learning to read together!