Parent Tips

1.  Read to your child.  Use good expression and show him/her that you love the literature and enjoy the time that you read to them.  The Read-Aloud Handbook (4th edition)  by Jim Trelease recommends some excellent books for fun reading together-time.  Trelease's book, Hey! Listen to This: Stories to Read Aloud, has numerous excellent selections to enjoy reading with children.

2.  Read many different types of books to children.   Read fiction and nonfiction.  Read different types of literature.  Read books by many different authors.  Help children discover topics, books, and authors that they will want to read independently.  Check the KidBibs Grow-a-Reader feature for ideas!

3.  Surround children with books--fiction and nonfiction.  Keep them in their bedroom, the living room, the bathroom, the car, etc.  Teach children to reach for books when they have a minute!

4.  Supply your child with reading materials related to his/her interests.  Provide fiction and nonfiction.  Help them discover that they enjoy reading about their interests and hobbies. 

5.  Reduce TV viewing time and videogame time.   Increase reading time.  A book with a program for reducing TV viewing time is Couch Potato Kids: Teaching Kids to Turn Off the TV and tune In to Fun by Lee Canter and Marlene Canter.   

6.  Establish family literacy routines.  These routines might include designated Family Reading Nights, an afternoon when you go to the public library, etc.  Value and maintain these routines.  Let it become something that your child looks forward to!

7.  Read.  Let your children see you reading.   Children value the things that their parents value.  Parents who read usually have children who read.

8.  Give books as gifts. 

9.  Give stuffed animals of book characters (Arthur, Paddington, Curious George, Madeline, Franklin, etc.) as gifts.  Children often like to play-out the scenarios that they experience in books with stuffed animals, puppets, and dolls.

10.  Visit the web sites of your child's favorite characters/stories and authors.  Arthur, Magic School Bus, and others have web pages on the PBS web site.  Many children's authors also have web sites on the internet.

11.  Read books together.   Any book can be read together.  The following books are especially good for this:  Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices and I Am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices (both by Paul Fleischman). 

12.  Cook together.  Follow the directions and enjoy the food that you prepare.  Show your child that reading is a real-world activity.  It is relevant, meaningful, and fun!

13.  Subscribe to a children's magazine for your child.  This give your child something to look forward to in the mail every month.   Keep checking KidMags for additions to the list.

14.  Encourage your older child to read to your younger child and vice versa. Both children benefit from doing this!

15.  Encourage your child to write and create. Put markers, crayons, pencils, paper, glue, etc. in a readily accessible caddy.  Encourage him/her to write stories, draw pictures about stories, write letters to grandparents, etc.  Children who become readers are usually paper-and-pencil kids!

Teacher Tips

1.  Provide parents and children with opportunities to purchase inexpensive, quality children's literature through book orders and book fairs.

2.  Read a wide variety of quality children's literature to your students.   Help them experience different literary genre, themes, styles, and authors.   When children express their reading preferences, help them locate other books that they will enjoy reading.

3.  Supply parents with a list of books appropriate for students in their child's grade level.  The KidBibs Grow-a-Reader section might be appropriate for you to share with them.

4.  When you implement art/craft activities, science experiments, and cooking activities, supply parents with the directions.  That way, parents who choose may do them with their children.

5.  If you implement strategies like Content Riddles, give your students a copy of the text after you've done it in class.  Let them take it home and do it with parents and siblings.  This strategy doesn't take long to do, but it can yield a few minutes of interesting, entertaining reading time together.

6.  Invite parents to your classroom.  Let them see how you do things (i.e., what you tell children to do when they come to a word they don't know, what you tell children when they don't know how to spell a word, how you discuss stories, etc.)

7.  Provide children with opportunities to write to penpals or keypals.  [One web site which helps teachers find keypals is the Loogootee West Elementary School web site.]  Tell parents about the pen/keypals.  Suggest that they encourage their child to continue the correspondence after the school year ends.

8.  Provide children with opportunities to publish on the internet.  KidPub is a good place for children to publish their writing.  There are many other good web sites that publish children's writing.

8.  Provide parents with tips, pamphlets, web sites, etc. that will help them support the reading-writing development of their child.   Some of the web sites listed on the KidBibs SuperSites page might be useful.

9.  Set up a parenting section in your school library.  Start with a few books and add to it as you can.  Some of the books listed in the KidBibs Virtual Bookstore might be appropriate for this section.

Homeschooling Tips

1.  Create an environment that supports your child's literacy development. A number of suggestions for doing this are included in the Parent Tips section.

2.  Encourage your child to publish his/her writing. Kids' Town is a magazine by and for homeschooled children. 

3.  Provide your child with opportunities to meet with other homeschooled children about books. This will help them experience more literary genre, authors, etc. in a fun, interesting way.