Cultivating Resilience: How do I help my child read when I find reading hard?
Do you see glimpses of yourself or your partner in your child? Maybe you recognize the same eyes, smile, or athletic ability. As a parent, sometimes there are struggles we’ve faced that we hope not to pass down to our children. If you have had a difficult experience with school, chances are that you are sincerely hoping your child’s educational path looks different. Maybe you always found reading to be hard and still do. If you’re starting to see similar struggles in your child, it can feel overwhelming and disheartening. No matter where you are in your literacy journey, as a parent, you play an instrumental role in helping your child. This article intends to provide some practical ways to boost your child’s reading success no matter your own personal reading abilities!
Start Early
To set your child up for academic and reading success, the absolute best thing you can do is start early. The benefits of reading to your child from infancy and beyond are numerous! When they are babies, you can show the board books that require no reading. Point to the pictures, label what you see, explain what’s happening in the pictures. You might think that because they’re pulling and drooling on the pages it is a pointless effort, but your baby’s brain is an amazing little sponge! You are teaching them so much, including vocabulary and motor skills, while simultaneously building invaluable connection through spending intentional time together.
Beyond the Page
As your child matures, it is so important to continue exploring books together, but this does not have to involve reading a physical book! Resources such as YouTube videos, podcasts, and audiobooks are widely available for free and make for amazing connection time. The key is to do these activities together!
Use Technology - Wisely
Sometimes we forget to talk about the clear benefits that are waiting when we engage in technology with our children. Imagine how much more benefit you give your child by sitting and listening to Awni read you both a story on YouTube rather than handing your child an iPad while you go to another room. (There are many dangers of giving your child unfettered access to technology, but this is not an article about that. No shame!)
When you listen and watch together, you react together, you can discuss together, you can explain new words or ideas together. There might be a reference that comes up later about David and the trouble he gets into! Experiencing stories together builds empathy and gives us a shared understanding and way of talking about the world around us.
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Make it Fun!
Maybe you remember a point in time when the idea of reading started to feel more like a bellyache than an enjoyable hobby. If there’s a way to keep kids interested in anything, including reading, it’s to make it fun! Again, one of the absolute best ways to make anything fun for your child is for it to involve time with YOU.
We have a whole article on different literacy games and activities that are easy enough to play from your car. Check it out and find some ideas that work for your child’s stage.
Work with your school
Remember that you and your school are on the same side - you both want the best for your child! There might be times that you disagree on what that is, but viewing one another as teammates can be helpful. If a language barrier leaves you feeling isolated at your school, you’re not alone! Request an interpreter from the school or find a staff member that shares your language background. Remember that there are no bad questions!
Partnering with your child’s teacher to understand what support might be needed is a great benefit to your child. Consider sharing your reading journey with the teacher so they can better understand how to communicate with you and your family.
What if it’s too late?
It’s not! It’s not too late for you or your child to foster a positive experience around literacy. Model for your child the idea of resilience - you can do hard things!
Build routines to make reading part of your family’s regular life! (Blog post on this coming soon!)
Access free adult literacy services in your area if you’ve not had the opportunity to learn to read! It’s never too late!
If you speak or read another language - foster multilingualism in your home!! You give your child a true gift by exposing them to all of the languages you have.
Let them teach you! Sometimes kids can correct their parent’s pronunciation of English words or their reading and sometimes that can come off disrespectful - don’t let this stop you from learning! If you can develop a way to talk kindly, perhaps with a sense of humor, to one another as everyone in the home grows their language skills, you will all benefit and so will your relationships with one another!
More Resources
Did you know that your library card can get you free access to a huge library of audiobooks?
Youtube has a plethora of videos of stories being read aloud.
Stories podcasts for kids and families are available on all podcast platforms.
If your family has a Kindle, the library has tons of free resources to borrow and some can play audio too!
This option is not free, but a screen-free device like a Yoto player or a Tonies box lets your family listen to stories and provides a worry-free experience for your child to listen to stories independently and screen-free.
