photo by Svadilfari
This year, we moved from small readers into chapter books, like The Boxcar Children. My goal with the chapter books is to encourage my daughter to read for enjoyment. Each day, she reads a chapter aloud to me.
Here are some things I do to make the most of this time together:
1. I only help with words she asks for help with. I don’t even look at the page. I want her to learn to read for content and with fluency. I save my reading corrections for our 3x weekly review with The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading.
2. I preview a couple chapters and write down words I am not sure knows. Once or twice a week, I go through the words as a preview to the coming chapters. Reading them in context helps her learn them permanently and keeps her from becoming frustrated.
3. I write down other words she doesn’t know. I don’t write down every word she misses, just the ones she misses several times. Keeping a sticky note on my leg and a pen behind my ear makes it easy to jot them down regardless of what I am doing while she is reading to me.
4. I ask her questions. What do you think they will find at the dump? Wasn’t it nice of the lady to give Henry all those cookies? Talking about what she is reading not only lets her know I am excited and listening, but also helps with reading comprehension. I have also noticed that the more enthusiastic I am, the more excited she is to read to me.
5. I help her log her progress. Recording how many pages she has read was tedious at first, but now she looks forward to increasing that number. I have not yet used incentives to reach a certain number, but I am sure it would motivate her to read even more.
What has helped you transition into chapter books?
Melissa is a semi-rookie homeschool mom of two. When she isn’t buried in a book, she shares her family’s adventure at HopeSprouts.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
My daughter was quite bored of the early reader type books and wanted to read chapter books. She would pick out many from the library that were far too advanced with at least 150 pages- just too much for her at this age. So I helped her pick some books that were shorter in length but challenging enough so she would have to work at it. Then I began reading the book aloud to her. At critical points in the book, I would stop, saying I had something that needed to be done and we would pick up again the next day. Then I would leave the book next to her. Of course this would kill her and she would start reading on her own until it had strained her brain enough. Then we would do this again the next day. Soon she was able to read more and more of it on her own. This also helped her to be able to read all of the character’s names and places in the book since I had already read them aloud to her in the beginning.
I loved the transition to chapter books with my oldest kids, and teally look forward to it with the younger ones. We started with the level 1 readers at the library, and moved up from there. I was so excited when we started on Frog and Toad, Amelia Bedelia, and other similar books. When they began reading Little House books, I knew we had arrived! It’s so fun to watch them read for pleasure.
Nicki´s last [type] ..School Week- Sonlight
I’ve used readers’ theatre scripts to help with the transition to chapter books. Writing a few scenes from a chapter as a quick, easier-to-read- aloud script has helped jumpstart the kids’ interest into “continuing the story” with the matching chapter book. It’s also fun to act out the chapter books with homemade puppets!
Janet from Creative Writing´s last [type] ..Feb 9- Creative Writing Ideas- Creative Ideas for Writing Across the Curriculum
I am with Deborah!!! When I know they can do it but they don’t think they can or just plain old dig their heels in!!! I have one or two that would much rather be climbing trees… I start a book and then get busy, they literally can’t stand it and finish it!!! Once they realize they can read the box car children then they realize they can read another and another and we never look back!!!
Great ideas! I ‘ve been wondering how to encourage my daughter to try some easy chapter books. This wshould help the transition.
Cheryl´s last [type] ..Sacrifice Crown of Thorns