Tips For Reading At Home With Your Kindergartener 

•Read with expression using different voices for different characters.

•Emphasize rhythms and rhymes in stories. Give your kindergartener opportunities to repeat rhyming phrases.

•Encourage your child to ask questions. Provide models of interesting questions and examples of possible answers: "I wonder what is going to happen next? I think the rabbit will get lost because he is not paying attention to where he is going. What do you think?"

•Look for a variety of books that interest your child. For example, does your child like cars, insects or animals?  Also, read both fiction and nonfiction books.

•Give your child a chance to choose his own books for reading. If your child chooses a book that is too long to hold his attention, read some and skip some, discussing the pictures and how they relate to the story.

•Read stories again and again. Your child enjoys repetition, and it helps her become familiar with the way stories are organized. 

•Let your child talk about the stories. Ask questions about the pictures.

•Set a good example as a reader — read every day at home even if it is a magazine or newspaper.

•Keep reading to your child even when he or she can read. 

•Talk with your child about favorite authors and help him find additional books by those authors.

•Talk about the meaning of new words and ideas introduced in books. Help your child think of examples of new concepts.

•Take turns reading a story with your child. Don't interrupt to correct mistakes that do not change the meaning.

•Give children extra opportunities to read. Let him help read the directions for that new game or to look for certain words in the newspaper. Ask them to "help you" by reading the cookie recipe or traffic signs.

•Make reading fun — a time that you both look forward to spending together.

excerpted from the National Education Associaion (NEA) 2007