Helping your Child become a reader © Gwenda Sanderson, 2002   These are the strategies that I believe are important in helping your child become a reader, someone who know HOW to read and who CHOOSES to read.   ·         Be a reader yourself.  Also encourage your partner to be seen by the child as a ‘reader’.  If you both show that you value reading, your child will see reading as being an essential part of their life.  Boys especially, have to see that the significant men in their lives value reading.  Show how reading is part of your adult life – reading for pleasure or for information.  Read with your child: letters, junk mail, notes from school, newspapers, magazines such as TV guides, instructions, recipes etc.   ·         Read some of your child’s books yourself.  Find out what children of the same age are enjoying.  Ask other children, parents, teachers, and librarians.  A picture book will take a few minutes for you to read alone, while a novel is probably an hour or two read.  It will be worth every minute in the long term!    ·         Talk about your own strategies as a reader.  Talk about what you do when you come to words you don’t know e.g. keep reading on, or sound out the first letter or two and have ago at the word, or think about the story and what word is likely to be there.  Show how you focus on enjoying the story and getting the meaning, rather than trying to read every word perfectly.  In fact, the research suggests that experienced readers miss many words as they read, whereas poorer readers think that reading is about errorless, word by word ‘stabbing’.  No wonder many get turned off so quickly!   Say what you do when you return to a book after a break of several days e.g. You might reread a few pages to get back into the story.   ·         Share ‘the cream’ of the books.  Look for the best books – those with humour, that show emotion, that are connected to their experiences, that have exaggerated extreme characters that are fast paced, and that are written in a natural, relaxed style.  Children love risqué things in stories and ‘horror’ stories are currently popular.  Goosebumps, Paul Jennings and other titles at the end of this brochure will be a starting point for you.   ‘Walk’ with children into books.  Read picture books galore to your younger child.  Saturate them with the fabulous books that are around today.  Studies suggest that children who come to school and quickly take off as readers, have had over 1000 books read to them before they started school.   Use your local library and give books as rewards, treats and birthday presents.   ·         Read whole novels as a ‘serial read’ with your older children.  Here you can read some of your old favourites, but don’t expect them to want to continue these books by themselves.   If your child is a reluctant reader, read the first few chapters together of a suggested book (with you both looking at the page).  Then once you are into the story and your child has a feel for the words in the book, ask you child if the want to read a paragraph or a page.  Be positive and encouraging if they read to you. (See the cautionary note below!)  Alternate your reading or read parts together aloud.  Make your voice a little louder and faster.  Some people call this practice ‘towing’.   Caution: Discourage their reading aloud, unless they want to.  Many children say they hate reading aloud to their parents.  They feel ‘set up’ and criticised, and it only alienates them more from reading. Many parents tell me about the tensions around trying to listen to their child read.  It can really affect their relationship with their child.   When this is happening, don’t ask them to read to you!  Read to them and just have a happy time together.  Make the book the focus.  Be close and enjoy the book together.  These will be special memorable times for you both.   ·         Encourage children to enthuse each other.  Children are great at influencing each other.  Capitalise on this where you can.  For example, boys have told me how they got into Goosebumps through reading them at a friend’s place when they slept over.  These books are considered ‘trendy’.   ·         Help your boys see reading as something that ‘cool’ guys do.  There is increasing concern about boys lesser academic performance at school.  I believe that a significant reason for this is that generally boys read considerably less than girls.  In my experience, how well a student does at school, is directly proportional to the quantity of reading they have done.  An experienced reader outperforms inexperienced readers in comprehension, writing stories and factual material, in their proofreading, spelling and editing skills, and in their test and exam performances.  This eventually applies in maths as well, as there is more reading at the higher levels in maths.   Boys continue to see themselves as the gender that plays outside, that is preoccupied with sport, (‘doing’ sport or watching it), playing on the computer or watching TV and videos.  Many boys perceive reading as something that girls, mothers and ‘wusses’ do.  They see reading as a feminine pursuit and they only read when made to.  However reading does not need to be a contradiction of their maleness.  We have to think of ways to show that reading books is equally important and valued for boys, as well as for girls.   Finally, be the ‘human tie’. You, your child and a good book – these are the keys to helping your child become a reader.  They will learn how to read.  Their independent personal reading will be the basis of their success at school, and they will become readers for life.       Here are some favourite books presented from easier to more difficult.  1.        For children commencing reading look for picture books with fast action, repetitive words and lots of fun in them. eg.   Little Rabbit Foo Foo   (Walker).  Robert Munsch books such as eg.   Good Families Don’t & David’s Father & Pigs   (Annick) are very popular, as are all Babette Cole titles e.g. Hurrah for Ethelyn & Supermoo & Three Cheers for Errol     (Mammoth)   2.        The books between picture books and novels ie. 'bridging books'. Look for  titles in the Jets  series eg.  Pesters of the West   (Collins), the Skinny  books series eg.  My Wacky Gran   (Collins), Chillers series eg. The Real Porky Phillips (Black), The Ms Wiz series (Pan) and the Dipper series eg.  Pink Fluffy Slippers (Omnibus).   3.        Other special popular titles for readers who are not quite ready for full novel are: Winter, Tim  The Bugalugs Bum Thief   (Puffin) Scieszka, Jon   The Frog Prince Continued & The Stinky Cheeseman and Other Fairly Stupid Tales & The True Story of the Three Little Pigs & The Time Warp Trio  series (3 titles)   (Puffin) Dahl, Roald   Magic Finger & Fantastic Mr Fox & George’s Marvellous Medicine & The Twits & The Minpins & The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me   (Puffin) Jennings, Paul   All titles including Gismo & The Paw Thing & The Cabbage Patch Fib   Following are books of novel length, that the boys enjoy because of humour, risque parts, horror or they just are a 'good read': Ball, Duncan   All Selby   titles   (Collins) Clark, Margaret   Tina Tuff & Plastic City & Fat Chance & Weird Warren   (Omnibus) Dann, Max   Clark   (Puffin) Fine, Anne   Bill’s New Frock & Madame Doubtfire and other titles by Fine   (Puffin) Heasley, Murray   Shuz   (Omnibus) Harris, Christine   Outer Face & Buried Secrets   (Random) Gleitzman, Morris   All titles, Blabbermouth & Stickybeak & Two Weeks With the Queen   (Pan) Oswald, Debra  The Return of the Baked Bean   (Puffin) Mattingly, Christobel   No Gun for Azmir   (Puffin) Fleischman, Sid   The Whipping Boy   (Mammoth) Simons, Moya   Dead Meat   (Omnibus) Stine, R. L.   Goosebumps   and Fear Street  series   & other titles (Scholastic) Stephens, Michael   The Ghost Train & Eddy the Great & The Prince of Kelvin Mall & Titans   (Allen & Unwin) Spinelli, Jerry   Maniac McGee   (Scholastic) Wilson, David Henry   There’s a Wolf in My Pudding & other titles   (Pan) Winton, Tim   Lockie Leonard Human Scumbuster & .Lockie Leonard Human Torpedo   (Pan) Jacques, Brian   The Redwall Trilogy & Mariel & Salamandastron & other titles   (Random)   Look out for books based on                 current films eg. Strasser, Todd   Free Willy   (Puffin)                 humorous poetry eg.  Macleod, Doug   Sister Madge’s Book of Nuns   (Omnibus)                 joke books                  books with tapes eg Disney 's Read with me  series, Jets  book and tape sets, ABC children's book tapes   Other authors to look out for:  Emily, Rodda, Jeremy Strong, Jacqueline Wilson, Geoffrey McSkimming, David McRobbie, Lynne Reid Banks and Tamora Pierce.