Parents on Reading 

If your teen is having difficulty with reading and/or comprehension there are many sources of help available to you.

Ask your teen’s guidance counselor and reading teacher for help. Then follow through with the suggestions. Go to parent-teacher conferences. If you can’t go due to work, have someone else go for you. Make sure your teen attends school regularly and does his/her homework.

Have books in your home. Have a newspaper in the home if possible. If not, get the free neighborhood one. Make reading an expected normal family activity.

One of the best ways to help your child read is to read to our child. It doesn’t matter what age he/she is or what reading level he/she is at – read. Even if it is just 5 minutes a day, it’s progress and it will help. Take the time. Make the effort. If you are not home when your kids are, find someone who will read to them for you.

The Center for the Study of Reading, state in their 1985 report, “Becoming A Nation of Readers” that “The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”

Have your child retell the story to you.

Read the same book your teen is for English or Reading class. Talk about it! It’s a way to keep your teen reading and communicating and it’s a way to build a bridge for both of you.

Don’t make reading aloud and silent reading times a choice between reading and the TV. The TV needs to be turned off during these times.

Share with your kids that reading has a purpose besides for taking tests. You can’t get a job that means anything without reading. Share with your kids that reading is fun. Just by opening a book, think of all the places you can go with your child or the stories you will share. Reading allows you to learn to play a game, do a puzzle, follow a recipe.

Have books around as much as possible. Public libraries are free to use. Have paper, pencils, drawing supplies available for your teen, because writing and drawing follow reading. Make a corner or a spot in your home that is just for reading. It can be just a chair – but make a special place.

Children learn reading more readily in a constructive environment rather than in a negative, constant correcting environment.

Talk with your children. They will learn language from hearing you speak, so there needs to be conversations about anything and everything. Conversation and dialog also means that everyone needs to learn how to truly listen – not just to the words, but to the meanings behind the words.

Write notes to your children. Kids need to read in all different formats and sources.

Remember that the goal is not just for your teen to learn to read, but to help your teen to become a reader.

Often, being able to read is a family issue, not just the issue of the teen. There are places to help the entire family – some of which are listed at the end of this section. Your first stop may be your child’s reading teacher or the librarian at your local library. Literacy programs are free.

Make sure everyone in the family has their own library card – it’s free and so is the borrowing.

If you know how to read but you know of a child/family who is struggling, offer to help. It may just take reading aloud to a child a few minutes a day to make the difference.