Three Ways to Engage Your Early Reader During Storytime
Updated: Sep 26, 2020
You read to your early reader before school, you read to them before bedtime, so they are getting all the literacy benefits from the practice, right? Sure, reading to your early reader is essential, but here are three teacher tried and proven tricks to make sure your student is getting the most out of the exercise:
ASK QUESTIONS ALONG THE WAY: Throughout the story, stop to ask your child what is happening in the book. This helps them develop important story telling and comprehension skills. Even better, ask them HOW they know that to be true! Your early reader is already using textual evidence to prove their point!
PLAY SIGHT WORD SAFARI: Ask your early reader to find the sight words on each new page. By pointing out high-usage words like "and, you, me, the," they are starting to read, even if they cannot yet read all the words on the page! This also feels like a game, keeping them engaged and interested throughout the story.
GIVE THEM AN IMPORTANT WORD: Similar to sight word safari, this let's the child participate in the reading of the story in an easy but fun way. Before you begin reading the book to your child, tell them that they will read the name of the main character whenever it comes up. They will have to follow along with the words as you say them and they will start to recognize the word or name they were assigned!
These three easy, ready to use tricks will make storytime fun and learning-filled for your young student! Let us know in the comments below how your storytimes change and grow!
