Three Ways to Read a Book

Did you know there are three ways to read a book?

We can read the pictures.

We can read the words.

We can retell the story.

Reading the pictures is one of the first ways readers learn about stories.  Pictures give so much information!  During your at home reading, read the pictures with your child.  Ask about who is in the picture, where the characters are at, and what the characters are doing.  See what details your reader can notice while looking at the pictures.

It's great when your child is ready to read the words.  When your child is just beginning to learn words, try to read books that have simple sentences that repeat.  For example, look for books that have sentences like this:   I can run. I can jump.  I can climb.  Other good predictable books repeat a sentence over and over on each page.  We recently read The Very Busy Spider, and on each page there was the same two sentences:  The spider didn't answer.  She was very busy spinning her web. The students picked up on that in no time!  Lastly, when I read aloud to my own sons, if I came across a word that I knew they knew, I would stop reading and ask them to read it.

Retelling the story is a good way for students to think about what happened in the book.  Most kiddos have a favorite story.  When reading to your child, ask your reader to tell you what happened in the book.  Start off with easy questions like "who was in this story?"  Other questions can be: "What do you know about the character?" "What happened at the beginning?  Then what happened?  How did the story end?  Did you think that was going to happen?  Why?

Building stamina is one of the biggest jobs for a new reader.  Being able to sit and read a book for a meaningful amount of time takes practice.  If your reader is working on building stamina, here are some things to try:

1.  When looking at the pictures, try to find something of a particular color or shape.  Try "let's see what we can find that's blue," or "What shapes do you notice?"
2.  When looking at words, try to find a specific letter.  Try "which words begin with the letter m?"  "Can you find any h's?"  "Let's look for the word the."
3.  When retelling the story, use the pictures for support.  Flip through the book and ask "What happened on this page?"

The longer your child can sit with a book the faster reading is going to take off!  Oh, and having a comfortable place to read helps, too!

Happy reading!