How to Help Your Child Get The Most Out of a Story

The importance of reading to your child from a very young age on is constantly stressed. Reading matters, not only because it contributes to overall child development and spurs an interest books and learning, but also because it can provide the perfect opportunity to share quality time with your child while exploring the story in detail.
There are a number of ways to help your child learn more about characters and things that happen in the story. Follow these simple steps and your child is likely to remember the stories you read and the special moments you spend together for a long time.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A favorite children's story book
• Arts and crafts materials, such as pipe cleaners, googly eyes, construction paper, scissors, glue, crayons, markers, ruler, stickers, fuzzy balls, popsicle sticks
• A library card

1. 
    

   Clear your schedule, set aside some time (up to 1 hour), and let your child choose a storybook from his bookshelf.

2. 
    

   Find a quiet corner to sit and read the story together. As you read to your child, use your finger to follow the words of the story to help your child learn directionality of reading. Ensure plenty of opportunity for your child to view illustrations, ask questions, or flip back to parts of the book that he/she finds interesting.

3. 
    

   After you have completed the storybook, initiate a discussion with your child. Ask, "What was your favorite part of the story?", "Who was your favorite character (or animal)?", "Do you wish you could do what ... did in the story?", "How did ... feel in the story when ... happened?". Try to assess your child's comprehension of the story and allow him/her to interpret the story in his/her own words. Also encourage him/her to use his/her imagination and find alternate events or endings for the story. For example, you may ask "What do you think would have happened to Max if he hadn't found his way back home?"

4. 
    

   You can intensify any story content, by finding different activities to do that relate to the story. For example, you may let your child choose his/her favorite character in the book and have him/her draw a picture of it or create a craft using construction paper, buttons, markers, and other art supplies. Find a song or rhyme that relates to the story and teach it to your child. Some stories, like "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" provide great opportunity for activities to build general knowledge and math skills. For example, you can take your child to the supermarket and have him/her pick out some of the fruits found in the story. Let him/her count and name the fruit, tell which fruit is bigger/smaller, and let him/her use the produce scale to weigh the fruit and find out which is heavier/lighter. You may also do this activity at home and have your child write down the name of the fruit, the weight in numbers, and draw a picture of each fruit next to it.

5. 
    

   Finally try to find out what your child liked the most about the story and help him/her learn more facts about it. For example, if you were reading a story about fish, you could let your child pick out his favorite fish and visit a library (or the Internet) to try to find a book only about this particular sea creature. Also, next time you visit a zoo or an aquarium, try find some of the animals/fish you read about in books and find out some more facts about them. By doing so, your are taking your child's interests and expanding on them through increased learning opportunities in literature and real life.