Reading Activities

Finding reading activities is easy, but finding activities that make reading fun is a lot harder. Many children are turned off reading at a young age because they are forced to dissect each word and sentence without taking the pleasure of the story itself. However, it is easy to find ways to engage your child in day-to-day reading beyond just sitting down with a book at bedtime.

Using Technology

Not all reading has to revolve around books, and with the rise of smartphone and tablet technology, you can use different media to get your child excited about reading, such as:

• Get hold of living books – Living books are completely interactive picture stories. They became popular in the 1990s when home computing took off, but you can now get electronic copies of most books. Some of the most popular include the Little Critter series, where you can have the story read to you, click words to correct pronunciation and click on just about any object to make it do something fun. Living books are great ways to kick start your child's imagination and give them a real enjoyment of books.

• Reading games – A simple search online will show dozens upon dozens of online games and reading activities. You can harness your child's natural competitive nature by finding games that allow them to keep score for correct definitions and finding the misspelled words. You can also find games that have different levels of difficulty depending on your child's reading age and ability.

• Information hunting – The sheer wealth of information, reading activities and pages that the internet offers means that you can tune into whatever interests your children have at any time. You can set up web trails, where you give them specific web sites to go to for information, or you can set them a list of questions and allow them free rein to find the answers as quickly as they can. Finding Reading Material

Children, who are struggling with reading, are often frustrated when faced with having to wade through all the text, with small close type, of the traditional fiction books. By providing alternative reading activities through different reading materials, you can spark interest and motivation. Some different opportunities for your child to develop reading skills include:

• Comic books – Comics are a great introduction to stories and easy reading. Each page has relatively few words and you can match the pictures to the events. However, your child will still need to read the words to understand how the plot is developing. You have a wide choice of comics from which to choose so you can easily find one that your child will find interesting.

• Your daily life – Bringing random pieces of literature from your working day home not only gives your child something to practice reading, but also gives them an insight into what you do when they do not see you. You can bring home menus, receipts, agendas, emails or anything that you see that you think your child would find interesting to read.

• Shopping – Food labels contain a lot of information as well some interesting facts and stories about the products. You could set your child the challenge of sorting your groceries alphabetically, or sending them off to find certain products, using brand names to improve their word recognition.

The important thing with reading activities is that they have to be ones that your child finds interesting. You will also need to have a range of different ones to keep them fresh. Finally, be on the look out for any opportunity to practice reading like billboards, road signs or commercials.

http://school.familyeducation.com/reading/family-learning/38301.html http://www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/ReadingBrain.html http://pbskids.org/read/

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