Tips for nurturing good readers

Below are some tried and tested tips on how to nurture a good reader. This post is likely to be updated as time goes by.

- Let your child see you reading
Children learn from what they observe. If he/she sees that you love reading, your child is likely to follow suit, too.

-Create a reading space.
Your reading space can even be a corner of the couch or a chair in your child’s room. Picking out a comfortable spot that has good lighting and room to keep some children books can help your child learn to connect coziness and comfort with reading.

-Allow your child to pick his or her own book.
He/She would be interested to listen to the story especially if it is something he/she had chosen. If the chosen story is too wordy and you do not have the time to read and summaries to the child, just explain that the book is too difficult for his/her level. If the child insist on having the wordy book, what you can do is a story telling from looking at illustrations.

-Get books that has a topic that your child is familiar with. 
If your child shows lack of interest in books and yet familiar with "Sofia the First" and "Jake and the Never Land Pirates"? What about Disney Junior? If your kids are familiar with these characters, good chances is that they would read these books or ask you to read with them. It will be good to introduce reader series to pre-schoolers.

- Encourage reading all by oneself. 

As a rule of the thumb, choose book that contains not more than 5 new words per page. This is ensure that the child would not feel overwhelm by the presence of numerous new words that he/she do not understand. The new words make reading less pleasant.

- Read wordless books occasionally. 

I used to think wordless books are not good for children to read simply because they are wordless. However,  I was told by a librarian that wordless books are good for children because it encourage children to look through the pictures and narrates based on their understanding. Reminds you of  Oral Test or Picture Composition? Yeah... that is how wordless books are supposed to work. I would listen to Little One's narration and correct her when she phrases her sentences wrongly.