How to Help Your Child on His Reading Homework

Parents who have instilled in their children the love for reading before they have even gone to school will find it reading homework easier. Even without this early advantage, there are still ways to make reading homework a breeze.

First is to have a bedtime routine. For younger children, reading to them before bedtime whether there is a reading homework or not should be a nightly routine. When a reading homework is assigned, the parent can incorporate it as part of the bedtime routine.

Both the parent and child will read from the book. It can be made fun by taking turns on reading the lines, the parent reading the part of the narrator and the child reading the part of the characters, or vice versa.

Reading should not be rushed. It should be done at a pace that the child is comfortable in. If he makes a mistake in pronouncing words, the parent should gently urge him to go back and read the word again. Then, have the child read the sentence from the beginning so that he will remember the corrected pronunciation.

Make the child involved in what is happening in the story. Ask him to describe the story's events in his own words. Then, ask what he thinks will happen next. This will improve his reading comprehension skills as he learns to dissect what he is reading.

Towards the end of the story, ask the child how he thinks it will end. At the end of the story, also ask questions as to why the child thinks a character is acting in a certain way, or what he thinks should have happened instead. Through these questions, the parent will get to check if they child has understood what he is reading, as well as gaining insight into how his child processes things.