“One thing that ____________ can do right away to improve his reading and writing skills is read more at home.”
While I was typing up my last round of student reports, I found myself writing a variation of this sentence over and over again. If you ask any teacher at Englist, they will tell you that it is easy to determine if a student has strong reading habits or not. All teachers have to do is listen to them read and look at their writing. And oftentimes, the biggest change students need to make is to simply read more.
The problem with telling parents to have their child read more at home is that parents don’t always understand why or know how to actually get their kids to read. It’s like a doctor telling a patient to eat healthier and exercise. We need to be more specific about how to get kids to read at home.
This got me thinking. I wanted to find out how the good readers in my class came to be good readers. While researching for this post, I found a handful of useful articles with tips on how to help children develop strong reading habits. But then I also realized that I have access to experts with practical knowledge and experience that I can ask.
Who are these experts? They are the parents of Englist students who read a lot at home. So, we made a survey and asked these experts what they did to ensure their kids became great readers.
The Survey
The purpose of the survey was to see if I could identify factors that develop strong reading habits in children. To begin, all of the teachers at Englist compiled a list of “strong readers” at our school. In this case, a strong reader is a student who enjoys reading and has consistenta good reading habits. Next, I created a brief survey to send to parents of the readers that we identified.
I then analyzed their responses to identify if there were any common factors that stick out in developing strong reading habits.
Findings
- 90% of parents enjoy reading themselves
- 79% read in front of their child
- 76% talk about reading
- 97% read with their children
- 97% of students have a cozy place to read
- 97% of students are allowed to choose what they read
- 88% let students re-read their favorite books
- majority of students started to read on their own between ages 5-7
We also asked parents what factors they believe contributed the most to helping their child develop reading habits. Here are the factors that came up the most:
- reading together (12)
- having a large and easily accessible selection of reading material (9)
- student choice (7)
- dedicated reading time (6)
- parental encouragement/guidance (6)
- talk about reading (5)
Unsurprisingly, the factors that parents report to have helped their children develop a good reading habit align with factors in the initial research that I did. For example, researchers and education leaders advise reading with children, talking to them about reading, creating a comfortable reading environment, having easy access to a wide range of reading material, and giving students freedom to choose what they read. None of this is new, but it is always encouraging when theory manifests in practice.
Start early
Another interesting takeaway from our survey is that most students started reading in English independently between the ages of five and seven. Some students started even earlier, but none of the parents reported that their children started after the age of eight. This finding confirms an inkling that I’m sure many of us have, which is that it is easier to develop reading habits earlier on in life. Therefore, it’s clearly a good idea to start fostering good reading habits as early as possible before schoolwork, screens, and other distractions come into play.
Be involved
One theme that unifies all the factors in developing strong reading habits is parental involvement. Parents who read with kids, who read themselves, and who talk about books with their kids have kids who become strong readers themselves.
This isn’t to say that in order for a child to have good reading habits, their parents need to be supervising them throughout their entire educational career. You just need to put in the work early on. Once they build up enough momentum, it’s hard to get kids to stop reading. Once students learn to read fluently and have had enough freedom to find what they enjoy, they will like reading more and the more they read, the better they get at it and the more they want to read, and so on. It becomes a virtuous cycle.
Conclusion
There are a number of strategies that you can try to help your children build a love for reading.
- Lead by example. You should be reading too.
- Read with your child.
- Talk to your child about what you are and what they are reading.
- Make sure children have a comfortable place to read.
- Set aside time for reading every day.
- Make sure reading material is accessible and abundant.
- Let students choose what they read.
- Start them early, and if you haven’t, start them now.
But above all else, be involved. You are the most important factor, especially at the beginning.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you read Every Child Every Day by Richard L. Allington and Rachael E. Gabriel. The authors do a great job of explaining how to help students build reading habits and why learning to read will help your child improve in all areas of their academic lives.
Other helpful links:
- 10 Ways to Support Your Child’s Literacy at Home
- Developing your child’s reading skills
- 8 ways to encourage reading at home
- 8 tips to help young kids develop good reading habits
If you have any questions or comments about the article, or if you would like to get involved, let us know! We’d love to hear from you.