Ideas for Reading at Home
(from Ministry of Education)
Talk about their reading
- Ask your child what they are reading and talk about their ideas: What is the ‘picture’ they have of particular characters? Are there people like that in your family or whānau? What do they want to find out from the book? What are the important messages? What do they think is going to happen next? What else do they need to know to understand the story or topic?
- Talk about books on similar topics. This helps your child to pull together ideas from different places
- Talk about different types of stories that are read or spoken. Newspaper articles, internet sites, whakataukī (proverbs), comics, bible stories, songs, waiata or novels will each have different points you can talk about together. Find a newspaper article you’re both interested in and talk about what it means to each of you
- Help your child to share their thinking. Get them to share opinions and talk about why they think that. Listen, even when you don’t agree with their ideas.
Here's a tip - give your child space and time to read. Reading longer books they have chosen needs plenty of time.
Read together
- Find out information together from different places. For example, manuals, dictionaries, the Internet, magazines, television guides, atlases, family tree information, whakapapa
- Play games that involve reading in a fun way
- Encourage your child to read to others
- Younger brothers and sisters, whānau or grandparents are great audiences for practising smooth and interesting reading out loud
- Visit the library regularly. Help your child choose books they’re interested in (about hobbies, interests or who they are and where they come from) or encourage them to get books out that are about what they are studying at school. They may need you to help by reading to them, as well
- Find books of movies or TV programmes. It can help your child to learn different ways to tell the same story if they read the ‘stories’ they have watched.
Here's a tip - help your child to link stories to their own life. Remind them about what they have done when a similar thing happens in the story.
Be a reader yourself
- Talk about what you are reading and why you are enjoying it or what is challenging about it. Read a book to your child that they might find difficult but want to read, and talk about it as you read. Use your first language whenever you can – it can help your child’s learning
- Read the same book or magazine as your child. You can then share your ideas about what you have read. You could talk about why the authors made the choices they did when writing the story.
Here's a tip - keep the magic of listening to a good story alive by reading either made up, retold or read-aloud stories to your child – with lots of excitement through the use of your voice.