As parents, we all know how important daily reading is for our child’s learning development. But do you ever find yourself lost as to how to help your kids practice their reading and writing skills? Author and public school teacher Heidi Cooley knows this tension and wants to not only help your kids with their reading skills, but also help them to know God more with her new Mighty Reader resources for both first and second grade, available now! Follow along during our Teacher Talk series  for great tips from Heidi!

Hello Parents! In our final week we are focusing on parents as reading partners. I wrote the Mighty Reader Workbook to include parents/guardians in the reading process. These workbooks are not designed to be done independently by the child; they will require your partnership during the process.

It is important to read the parent letter, reading strategies guide, and reading skills guide at the beginning of each workbook. These resources will help you to better understand how to help your child when completing each lesson. Below, I have listed some of the ways you can be a reading partner when using the Mighty Reader Workbook.

Parents as partners:

• Encourage your child to read aloud the questions to you after reading the passage. If he struggles, help him with the words.
• Tell her to look back in the text for evidence to support her answer.
• Listen to your child read aloud and encourage him during the process.
• It’s okay to let her struggle at times. Encourage her to sound out words that are difficult.
• Provide assistance when she becomes frustrated.
• Check over handwriting and spelling when your child answers the questions. Encourage him to do his very best handwriting.
• Be a model reader for your child. Let her hear and see you read. She will love it!
  Enjoy the time together. These stories will often create meaningful conversations between you and your child!

Being your child’s reading partner is a wonderful experience! In addition, the Mighty Reader Workbook will give you, as the parent, an idea of how your child learns and practices reading at school. This is a great resource to use during the summer to avoid the summer slump and also throughout the year to help achieve the suggested 20 minutes of daily reading!

I hope you enjoy the workbooks! I pray your child will grow into a more confident reader, while being blessed by God’s word!

Blessings,

Heidi Cooley