Confident Readers

We all want to raise confident readers. We all want our children to walk into the school building confident enough to take risks and learn new material. However, when kids fall behind in reading it can impact their entire school experience. What do you do when your child falls behind? What do you do when your kid feels like he or she can’t keep up with the other kids in their class?

Well… to start I want you to think about how your child is feeling. They feel lonely, they feel afraid, they may even feel like a target. When you talk to your student about reading be very gentle in your approach. Kids learn to read at a variety of ages. Understanding letters, sounds, and how they make words can be more difficult for some than others. For them to become confident readers they need to believe that they will be able to read!

Reading aloud in school can be scary. They may be great readers who feel very insecure when reading aloud. They may be afraid to make a mistake in front of their peers or their teacher. If your child is not a great reader and is asked to read in front of the class, this could be a terrifying experience. How do you increase their confidence?

There are a few things you can do at help boost their confidence.

• Have them read out loud to you or a trusted adult. The more they practice reading out loud, the more comfortable they will become with it.
• Allow them to see you struggle with new words. Point out a word that you don’t know and have to sound it out. You may even want to look the word up in a dictionary (or internet) to find out the meaning.
• Give them privacy when reading. They can read out loud to themselves. This will give them practice in a very safe environment.
• When your kids make a mistake, don’t over correct them. If they realize how many mistakes they are making it could make them even less confident. Small mistakes or even small omissions do not need to be corrected each time.

The goal is for kids to read confidently. The goal is for them to walk into that school building and know they can take risks, know they can learn new material, and know they are champions!!