Educator Paulette Chaffee Shares How Parents Can Give Their Child a Head Start in Reading

Reading is a fundamental skill that children must learn in order to progress in educational development. The inability to read can lead to a child falling behind in school or even failing. As an experienced teacher and children’s advocate, Paulette Chaffee states that difficulties with reading usually begin before fourth grade, making reading skills all the more challenging to learn if the issue remains unaddressed.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that out of all fourth-grade students in America, only thirty-five percent are successfully reading at grade level. To help set a student up for a positive learning experience with reading, parents can give their child a head start in reading using these tips from Chaffee:

1. Incorporate Language into Early Childhood Play

According to Dr. David Kilpatrick, learning how to read is an auditory process. For that reason, a parent can help develop a solid platform for a child’s language development before the days of kindergarten through repetitive experiences with sound. For example, one of the simplest ways to incorporate language and sounds into early childhood play is through singing.

2. Make Reading Fun

Parents can create a fun atmosphere around reading through positive and exciting interactions. For instance, reading a bedtime story aloud to a child while enjoying milk and cookies can communicate to a child that reading time is a treat or something to look forward to daily. Reading can also be fun for a child when the child gets to choose what to read.

Reading books with your children at an early age helps them learn more words before starting school. In a recent study conducted by the University of California, Santa Cruz, psychology professor Dominic Massaro revealed that children could more effectively expand vocabulary by hearing a book read aloud versus talking.

3. Create a Dialogue

To create other positive experiences with reading, parents can create a dialogue with their children while reading a book together. Sounding out words is excellent but asking a child follow-up questions about pictures and words generates more impact. When a child has to look beyond the story to answer questions regarding colors in images or pointing out animals, they exercise thinking skills. As a child develops, reading-time questions can also evolve into talking about punctuation or asking more complex questions behind a story’s main idea or plot.

4. Build an At-Home Library

Books can provide children with a gateway to new and undiscovered worlds. Giving children access to books at home is a great way to maintain engagement with reading. The availability of books at home also shows a child that reading is valued, encouraged, and embraced.

5. Utilize Books on Tape

Various scenarios might prevent a parent from fully supporting a child during early learning development. From demanding jobs to non-native language barriers, parents cannot always be there to read a child a book. In that case, parents should take advantage of books on tape or audiobooks. A child can hold a book and follow along as it is read to them. Audiobooks still grant a child the ability to hear new vocabulary and how words sound.

About Paulette Chaffee

Paulette Chaffee is a teacher, speech therapist, and attorney deeply involved in the Fullerton community. As an educator and member of various non-profit boards, her focus has always been on providing children with the highest quality education. Ms. Chaffee holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Redlands, a California Lifetime Teaching Credential, and is admitted to the California Bar.