If your charges are struggling with reading or overall literacy, there are simple and fun things you can do at home to help them connect more meaningfully with reading and writing. Sometimes there is an educational need that has to be addressed, but often it’s a lack of enjoyment or confidence that causes an obstacle. Here are some ways you can help support children’s writing and reading at home.
Reading to them..
Research shows that reading with a child is the single most important thing you can do to help their education. Help children access and enjoy the stories they’re struggling to read or understand themselves by reading to them. Reluctant readers may slowly start to share the reading with you, taking one page at a time or even one line at a time. Little and often is the best tactic here.
Supporting writing..
Reading and writing are interlinked, so you can help your charges improve their writing skills by ensuring that they have a variety of media to read at home. Writing often poses issues with children because it involves several elements - content, handwriting, spelling, punctuation and grammar. Talk to class teachers if need be to try and narrow dawn which aspect is causing trouble.
☑ Top tip: just like adults, children can struggle when faced with a blank page. Give them paper that has a picture border around it to make the writing space more manageable.
Sharing ideas..
When it comes to creative writing, some children have a natural gift for it and some need more help in sparking their imaginations. Playing language games and telling stories can help get their creative cogs turning, since oral activities help to develop vocabulary which in turn enriches writing.
Some tips for writing games and activities:
☑ Ensure the activity is fun. Write shopping lists, write messages on the fridge with magnets, make cards.
☑ Make simple books together - a book about when they were a baby, about a family holiday, or you could write a short story together.
☑ Make the writing task more manageable by sharing the writing: you write one line and they write the next. Over time they should increase in confidence and be able to take over more of the writing.
☑ Make sure they understand that crossings out don’t matter. The aim in all of this is to build the confidence to put pen to paper.
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