These tips may help your child’s reading skills and make reading fun.

• Get a library card for your child.  Children love seeing their names on the cards and choosing books they either want to read or have read to them.  Many libraries offer story hours and computers for public use.

• Read with your child for at least 20 minutes every night from a broad selection of children’s books, including fairy tales, songs, poetry, fiction and nonfiction.

• For beginning readers, point at each word as you read it.  This helps children learn that we read from left to right.  It also helps children understand that the word they say is the word they see.

• Let your beginning reader read to you.

• Talk with your child about the pictures and what is happening in the story to help develop comprehension skills.

• Read your child’s favorite book over and over again.  Children love hearing certain stories many times and the repetition helps them connect the sounds they hear with the written words.

• Invite your younger children to join in when you read stories that have rhyming words and lines that repeat.

• Point out new words and explain what they mean.

SOURCE: Adapted from Summer Reading Achievers brochure.