The Salina Journal – Jennifer Chung
“Let’s face it — reading affects every area of our lives. If kids struggle with reading, it is highly likely they will struggle in other areas of their academic life too. Parents can influence kids to form better reading habits and help them become better readers. Check out these five tips to inspire your kids to love reading: 1. Read with your kids. Parent involvement is the number one predictor of early childhood reading success and future academic achievement. Kids learn from parental modeling. Starting a daily reading ritual for pre-kindergarten kids is vital for developing a child’s love for reading. Kids who own 100 or more books tend to be more ready to tackle academic challenges. Using books with pop outs help stimulate imagination and make reading fun. Before getting started, read the title and ask your child to make a prediction of what the story is about. Point to words and pictures as you read to helps kids make the correlation between the story and the illustrations. Read with enthusiasm and energy by changing pitch and intonation to punctuate the story and character’s voice. Follow up each story by asking questions to ensure they understood the story and can relate it to another story or personal experience. The love of reading is partially developed by relating stories to real life.”(more)