Read with your child often. Try to make sure you read together everyday. The more your child practices her reading skills, the better her reading will become. Read bedtime stories to your child. Children of this age still love bedtime stories and will enjoy the quality time with you before they go to sleep. Make story time fun and interesting by using silly voices for characters. Help your child's comprehension skills by asking questions about what you have read. Ask her to guess what happens next. Talk to her about her feeling and responses to the characters and events in the story. Explain the meaning of any new words.
Praise and encourage your child's efforts at reading. Be pleased at the smallest progress he makes. Have realistic expectations and encourage every improvement. Tell him he is doing well; this will give his confidence a huge boost and will make him want to keep trying. Do not criticise mistakes; this will only make him nervous of reading in front of you and will cause anxiety associated with reading. Steer clear of put-downs. Positive encouragement and praise are the key to building confidence, reducing stress and help your child's achievements.
Play games with your child to make reading fun. Point out the letters in road signs and read the labels at the grocery store. Before going out, choose a letter each and see who can spot the letter first or most often. Whenever your child spots her letter, ask her to read the word to you. Play I-Spy; this helps develop phoneme (sound) knowledge. Rhyming games will help your child to develop her knowledge of word patterns. As games stay fun and your child's enthusiasm will increase.
Visit the library often. You can access a huge variety of books on every topic. Try not to interfere with the book choices your child makes; allow him time to wander around looking at a variety of books. Hopefully, this will foster an enthusiasm for books and reading and disprove any ideas that books, reading and libraries are boring. Find out if your library holds story telling sessions; these will also help to develop your child's enthusiasm.
Set your child a good example. Express pleasure and enjoyment in reading. Make sure you have lots of different reading materials around the home; these do not have to be limited to books. Have newspapers, magazines, comics, story books, information books, leaflets, even catalogues. These will all encourage your child to read. If your child sees you reading, she will want to do the same.