- Sing alphabet songs with their child;
- Read stories that their child chooses;
- Help their child clap the beats or syllables in words;
- Point out letters, especially letters in their child’s name;
- Play with language and rhymes; and
- Sing songs that manipulate phonemes, such as The Name Game.
- Talk with the teacher about their child’s phonics progress,
- Encourage children to point to words and say them out loud when writing,
- Have students explain their nightly word sorts to them
- Listen to their child read,
- Play spelling and word games like Scrabble and Hang Man.
- Read aloud often, encouraging their child to read aloud;
- Let their child choose books to read and reread favorite books;
- Model reading for fun and pleasure;
- Act out a book or story;
- Read aloud a sentence and then invite their child to read the same sentence (i.e., echo reading);
- Help their child read new words and talk about the meaning; and
- Talk with their child when they go to the library about how to pick out books of interest at an appropriate reading level.
- Read aloud a variety of genres,
- Talk with their child about daily events and about books they read together,
- Talk about how the illustrations and text in a book support each other,
- Search for new words in texts with their child and look them up in the dictionary, and
- Help their child learn new vocabulary based on hobbies or interests.
- Ask their child to predict what might happen next in a story;
- Ask who, what, where, when, and why questions about a book;
- Ask their child questions about the topic of a book before reading it;
- Ask their child about books being read at school and be familiar with them in order to extend conversations; and
- Ask their child what the main idea or message of a book might be.
- Provide multiple writing materials and tools;
- Let their child see them writing for various purposes
- Ask their child to say words out loud as he or she writes;
- Respond to the ideas their child has written;
- Encourage their child to write the way he or she talks, and then ask the child to read the writing aloud; and
- Plan a time and place for their child to write every day.
Reference:
Darling, S. (2005). Family literacy: Strategies for engaging parents in home support of reading cquisition. The Reading Teacher 58(5). pp. 476-479. doi:10.1598/RT.58.5.8
