Good+Reading+Habits

In order to be good readers children need to develop good reading habits. Try the following ways of helping your child read easily.


 * 1) **Use 'cover up'**. For some children the words and lines on the page may run together making it very difficult to see the individual words and letters. To help train a child's eye movements use a piece of paper or a card and let the child hold it under the words they are reading. When they have finished reading one line they move it down under the next line.
 * 2) **Point to the words**. Let children point to the words as they read. They can do this as well as covering up the words as before. This allows the child’s eyes to follow his or her fingers and helps reading become smoother.
 * 3) **Read out loud**. Sometimes reading out loud helps children. They may not need to make a noise, they can just mouth the words.
 * 4) **Let them move**. Some children need to move about as they read. Let them walk, curl in a chair, hold something in their hands. This helps them use all the parts of their brain. For some children sitting still with a book can be a form of torture!
 * 5) **Use highlighters**. These can be used to highlight important words in questions, main ideas, and words they do not understand. Use different colours for each task. This integrates visual thinking into the reading.
 * 6) **Use coloured stickers**. These can be used to mark important pages or passages in books to help children find and use the information they need for projects.
 * 7) **Use Chapter summaries**. These are a great way of preparing for book reviews. At the end of each chapter write a few sentences about character, setting and plot. Your child can refer to these when the book is finished and a book report has to be produced