{"id":495,"date":"2022-09-05T09:55:42","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T09:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=495"},"modified":"2022-09-05T09:55:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T09:55:43","slug":"the-path-to-becoming-an-engaged-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/the-path-to-becoming-an-engaged-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"The Path to Becoming an Engaged Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>During my five years of teaching young learners, I have often been approached by parents struggling to help their children read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Parents are well aware that learning to read is a crucial step towards reading to learn, and they are eager to help their children become independent learners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve found some useful tips which parents can use at home to support reading and ensure their child has everything they need for success at school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Choose the right book for your child<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Children need a reason to read, so choose a book that will captivate their attention and motivate them to keep tackling the words in it. There are also some key things to look out for which will help your child learn from the book they read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Engaging visuals<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Make sure that your child is able to build connections with the images in the story and relate them to their own personal experiences.<\/li><li><strong>Level-appropriate language<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Flip to a random page of the book and ask your child to read it aloud. The book you choose should not include more than a handful of unknown words per page.<\/li><li><strong>Audio versions<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 A voice recording of the story allows you to use the book in a variety of ways for different types of learners. Following the words they hear with a finger can help children learn the patterns of words. Copying the recording is a great way of improving pronunciation. Acting out the story as the book is read aloud connects words to their meanings.<\/li><li><strong>Supportive activities<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Look out for pre-reading and post-reading questions and activities that help your child engage with the book.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Allow room for uncertainty<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Slower readers often struggle to connect the words they read into a complete story in their heads. It can be helpful to provide additional support for this in order to help them see the end goal of reading. Try the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Encourage mistakes<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Some children get into the habit of looking up from the page whenever they encounter a word they can\u2019t read. This is quite a disruptive process and children find it hard to follow the narrative. Encourage your child to try sounding out the word. You can step in once they\u2019ve attempted it, but encourage them to keep their eyes on the page while you do so in order to connect the word to the sound you\u2019re saying.<\/li><li><strong>Ask recapping questions<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Find out which parts of the story your child hasn\u2019t followed by asking regular recapping questions. If they don\u2019t know the answer, demonstrate how to summarise the important parts you\u2019ve read using cause and effect, e.g. \u2018The witch felt Hansel\u2019s finger to see if he was fat enough to eat. Hansel held out a chicken bone to trick the witch into thinking he was very thin because Hansel didn\u2019t want the witch to eat him.\u2019<\/li><li><strong>Ask questions around the story<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Following context clues and making predictions are key elements of reading more complex stories. Ask questions such as \u2018Why did Hansel do that?\u2019 or \u2018What do you think Hansel will do next?\u2019 Wild guesses are fine to start with. You can point out clues in the story to refine your child\u2019s ideas, and soon they\u2019ll have excellent reading skills.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Our Seven Springs Education tutors deliver online classes that develop core language skills and instil a life-long love of learning in students. Our unique teaching style combines intuitive and systematic approaches to reading and our engaging materials provide ample opportunities for knowledge consolidation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During my five years of teaching young learners, I have often been approached by parents struggling to help their children read. Parents are well aware that learning to read is a crucial step towards reading to learn, and they are eager to help their children become independent learners. I\u2019ve found some useful tips which parents [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"category-supporting-reading"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":496,"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seven-springs.co.uk\/resource-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}