Suggestions for Maintaining Your Child's Reading Level

Suggestions for Parents 

1.  Continue to encourage your child to read every day.  Maintain your IRLA reading log.  Younger students should be read to until they reach an independent primer level.

2.  Reinforce your child's comprehension by doing the following:

For Fiction:

• Ask your child what the story was mostly about.
• Is there a problem in the story?
• Who is the main character and how would you describe them?
• Where does the story take place?
• How was the problem resolved?
• Ask your child to write a summary of the story.  Encourage your child to include the above in his/her summary, and include a conclusion telling why he or she liked or disliked the story.

For Nonfiction:

• Ask your child what the author wanted him/her to learn about.
• Have your child tell or write 3 things he/she learned after reading.
• Ask your child if there were any new words in the text that he/she didn't know and discuss.
• Ask your child if there is anything else he/she would like to know about the topic they have just read about.
• Encourage your child to write about the topic, explaining at least 3 details he/she learned from the text. The writing should include a topic sentence (ex:  The topic I read about was weather.)  He/she should also include a summary sentence (ex:  I learned many things that can cause the weather to change.)