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There are lots of ways that you can help your children learn to read! From the time that they are babies to the time that they are in high school, there are many little steps you can take along the way - rhyming and singing songs, reading out loud, sounding out letters, going to the library, and reading books together in your home language. Helping your children learn to read might also mean finding support if they are having difficulty, which can affect their future success. This section is filled with tips for what you can do at home, fun activities, suggestions for choosing books to share together, and ideas on how you can prepare your child for a lifetime and love of reading.

Finding Great Books
For recommendations of books for children and young adults, see our Books & Authors section.

What You'll Find in This Section

Lots of kids love non-fiction books because they are about the world they know and see around them. Books about topics like animals, sports, other countries, volcanoes, bugs, dinosaurs, and famous people may be just the thing to get your child excited about reading! Here are some tips about reading and choosing non-fiction books.

Reading with your child is one of the best ways to help him or her become a better reader. But you may have some questions - which books should we choose? Which language should I use? Is reading an e-book different? These tips offer ideas and advice to help make the most of your reading time! For a complete list of our reading tips for parents, see Parent Reading Tips by Topic.

Written especially for parents, Growing Readers (formerly Ed Extras) provides tips for raising strong readers and writers. Schools and PTAs can add these preformatted briefs to their parent newsletters. Growing Readers is also a great resource for libraries and community literacy organizations. The one- or two-page articles are available as a PDF in both English and Spanish.

Lots of kids love non-fiction books because they are about the world they know and see around them. Books about topics like animals, sports, other countries, volcanoes, bugs, dinosaurs, and famous people may be just the thing to get your child excited about reading! Here are some tips about reading and choosing non-fiction books.

Reading with your child is one of the best ways to help him or her become a better reader. But you may have some questions - which books should we choose? Which language should I use? Is reading an e-book different? These tips offer ideas and advice to help make the most of your reading time! For a complete list of our reading tips for parents, see Parent Reading Tips by Topic.

Written especially for parents, Growing Readers (formerly Ed Extras) provides tips for raising strong readers and writers. Schools and PTAs can add these preformatted briefs to their parent newsletters. Growing Readers is also a great resource for libraries and community literacy organizations. The one- or two-page articles are available as a PDF in both English and Spanish.

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There are lots of ways that you can help your children learn to read! From the time that they are babies to the time that they are in high school, there are many little steps you can take along the way - rhyming and singing songs, reading out loud, sounding out letters, going to the library, and reading books together in your home language.

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TeachingBooks | Author & Book Resources to Support Reading Education

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What a treasure. This site is extremely useful for non readers of all ages. My children just love it. I have shared this site with many of our special needs teachers across our county. Thanks so much for providing such a fun, affordable, and worthwhile product.
Renee
Special Education Teacher, MI

We love TumbleBooks!!! I should add the kids do, too!! TumbleBooks has allowed us to introduce a vast collection of books to students and they W A N T to read. It gives them choice, gives them some control over their own learning, all while at an appropriate reading level. What could be better?
Kathy
Reading Consultant Seth Haley School, CT

I love this site! The fact that the levels of books available are so far-reaching makes this a wonderful site for classrooms---virtually any child can utilize the features on this site. The book report feature is great as well--right along with many of the standards we are teaching in our classrooms, and a great tool for guiding students. The quizzes offer students feedback, and also encouragement as they continue to read. This promotes a feeling of success among students, and furthers their love for literature and reading.
Tammy
Curriculum Coach, SC

This is the best interactive read aloud website I have found. My students and I love it. We can always locate a book easy that connects to what we have been studying. The students love to watch the pictures, and as they progress with their decoding skills they pick out words that they know. When we watch one of these books, I have to pause it after every page so they can find all their sight words that are on the page. The website makes it like have a celebrity reader in our room daily. Thank you so much for your wonderful reading website.
Brandi
Kindergarten, AL

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TumbleBookLibrary is a curated database of children's e-books, available by subscription to Elementary Schools and Public Libraries around the world. TumbleBookLibrary Premium has over 1100 titles for grades K-6, and includes our unique animated, talking picture books, read-along chapter books, non fiction books and videos, curated playlists, as well as books in Spanish and French.

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It's not an easy thing, learning to read and write. Discover what it takes to build important literacy skills, and how you can help your children grow as readers, writers, and thinkers!

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Welcome to MCPL's Kids Site! Here you will find booklists, storytimes, STEM programs and more. Learn all about the resources Montgomery County Public Libraries has to offer your children.

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Resources for Parents | Tips & Information | Reading Partners

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At Reading Partners we know the learning doesn't begin and end in the classroom. Research shows that family involvement is the number one predictor of…

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Although the focus in the early grades is often on teaching young children how to read, the ultimate goal of reading is to understand the text-whether to learn new information or simply enjoy a story. Building the groundwork needed for this understanding starts right from the beginning of life-and it's essential from the beginning of school. What kind of instruction should you be looking for in your child's classroom?

During the primary grades (kindergarten through second grade), teaching children to sound out words is a necessary focus of instruction. ¹ Teachers should intentionally and carefully help children understand the relationships between written letters and spoken sounds. As children practice sounding out words in the texts they are reading, their ability to read words grows. Their understanding grows too because being able to quickly recognize words makes it easier to focus on the meaning of the texts. (See the article by Nell K. Duke for information on how to support foundational reading skills.)

But teaching children how to sound out words is not enough to help them become skilled readers. It is important that early instruction also focuses on language comprehension, especially understanding written language when it is read aloud. ²

What Does Language Comprehension Include?

Vocabulary: the words that children can either understand or use. As children become readers, they will be expected to understand words that typically are not used in everyday household conversations-but are used in books. ³ Therefore, exposing children to the language of books early on is important.

Language structures: the ways that words come together to form sentences and sentences come together to form paragraphs. Just as the words used in everyday conversations are different from the words in written language, the structure of language is different when speaking than when writing. Written sentences tend to be much longer and more complex.

Verbal reasoning: the ability to make sense of what you are reading. An important part of this is making inferences, or "reading between the lines." Consider the following sentences from the book Knuffle Bunny Too, ⁴ when Trixie realized in the middle of the night that her toy was switched with a classmate's toy: "Trixie marched into her mommy and daddy's room and said: 'That is not my bunny.' Trixie's daddy ... asked, 'Can we deal with this in the morning?' Trixie's daddy went to the phone." To make sense of these sentences, the reader or listener must infer that although Trixie's daddy wanted to sleep, he felt pressure from his daughter to immediately take care of the situation by calling her classmate's parents.

Background knowledge: the information that the reader or listener needs to understand the text. In the Knuffle Bunny example, children would need some knowledge of what it feels like to be in Trixie's situation to fully understand the urgency she felt to get her toy back. Because there is so much knowledge that children need and because it takes time to build, it is important that science and social studies instruction are emphasized in the earliest grades. In later grades, when children are expected to read science and social studies textbooks (and as adults, when they want to read newspapers), they will rely on this knowledge to be able to understand and learn from these more challenging texts.

Why Does Language Comprehension Matter?

Sometimes parents are surprised to learn that their child has difficulty understanding what they read in the upper elementary grades because teachers hadn't mentioned a reading problem in the primary grades. This might happen because the kinds of texts that children are expected to read change dramatically over time. In kindergarten and first grade, children are reading simple texts that are often fictional stories. By fourth grade, children spend a lot of time independently reading complex informational texts, such as a biography in social studies or a science textbook.

Take, for example, this excerpt from the book Rocks and Minerals:

Meteorites are pieces of rock or metal that hit the Earth. Some have broken off asteroids, large chunks of rock that orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. Most are fragments of comets. ⁵

To understand this passage, children must already have some familiarity with most of the vocabulary, especially words that are not defined, like fragments and comets. They must be able to understand the structure of the sentences-for example, understanding that the definition of asteroids comes after the comma. They must also have some background knowledge about the solar system and how it works. The next sentence in the book talks about how a massive meteorite may have caused the dinosaurs to become extinct. To understand how that is possible, an inference is necessary-children must understand something about how a big meteorite could damage the Earth or its atmosphere.

In a simple passage about meteorites, there is a lot to understand! The good news is that, in partnership with your child's teacher, you can help develop your child's language comprehension.

How Should K-2 Instruction Address Language Comprehension?

Back-and-forth conversation:From birth, children are developing language through conversations. This doesn't stop when they enter school. Teachers should foster a classroom in which your child has an opportunity to participate in frequent conversations on stimulating topics. As teachers engage children in back-and-forth conversations, they extend children's ideas to help them learn new words and knowledge. ⁶

Interactive read-alouds:Interactive read-alouds are a great way to foster language comprehension, ⁷ especially when children are listening to books that are a few grade levels above what they can read by themselves. With conversations before, during, and after these read-alouds, children can really learn from what they hear. The types of texts that teachers choose also matters. For example, when teachers choose several texts on the same topic (e.g., the water cycle), children's knowledge and vocabulary can grow. ⁸

Vocabulary instruction:It is important for teachers to carefully select vocabulary words from the read-alouds. They should provide instruction on these words in which they share child-friendly definitions, help children connect new words to words they already know, and encourage children to use the words. ⁹ (Ask your child's teacher to share vocabulary words regularly so you can practice them at home too.) Teachers should also foster learning environments where children are curious about words and the world.

Content knowledge instruction:Children should spend time learning about science and social studies topics in deep and meaningful ways. Read-alouds are important, but children should also spend time writing about and discussing these topics, along with engaging in hands-on inquiry (e.g., science investigations). ¹⁰

Comprehension strategy instruction:Teachers can teach important strategies that help children learn to read for understanding. ¹¹ For example, a teacher can help students monitor their comprehension during a read-aloud, stopping to think aloud about whether what was just read made sense. They can also model summarizing what they just learned from a particular page or paragraph.

Be on the lookout for how your child's language comprehension is supported right from the start of schooling. Your child's teacher should engage the class in meaningful conversations, provide experiences with listening and responding to a variety of texts, teach vocabulary words, and systematically build science and social studies knowledge. These opportunities to learn during the early years lay important groundwork for later reading success.
Sonia Q. Cabell is an associate professor of reading education with the School of Teacher Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University.
Endnotes

1. L. Ehri, "What Teachers Need to Know and Do to Teach Letter-Sounds, Phonemic Awareness, Word Reading, and Phonics," The Reading Teacher 76, no. 1 (2022): 53-61.

2. H. Scarborough, "Connecting Early Language and Literacy to Later Reading (Dis)Abilities: Evidence, Theory and Practice," in Handbook of Early Literacy Research, ed. S. Neuman and D. Dickinson (New York: Guilford, 2001).

3. A. Cunningham and K. Stanovich, "What Reading Does for the Mind," American Educator 22, nos. 1-2 (Spring/Summer 1998): 8-15.

4. M. Willems, Knuffle Bunny Too (New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2007).

5. C. Bingham, Rocks and Minerals (New York: DK Publishing, 2004), 16.

6. S. Cabell et al., "Teacher-Child Conversations in Preschool Classrooms: Contributions to Children's Vocabulary Development," Early Childhood Research Quarterly 30A (2015): 80-92.

7. T. Zucker et al., "The Role of Frequent, Interactive Prekindergarten Shared Reading in the Longitudinal Development of Language and Literacy Skills," Developmental Psychology 49, no. 8 (2013): 1425-39.

8. T. Wright et al., "The Impact of Knowledge-Building Through Conceptually-Coherent Read Alouds on Vocabulary and Comprehension," Reading Psychology 43, no. 1 (2022): 70-84.

9. I. Beck, M. McKeown, and L. Kucan, Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford, 2013).

10. H. Hwang et al., "What Research Says About Leveraging the Literacy Block for Learning," Reading in Virginia 42 (2021): 35-48.

11. N. Duke, A. Ward, and P. D. Pearson, "The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction," The Reading Teacher 74, no. 6 (2021): 663-72.

[photos: AFT]

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Helping Young Children Read for Understanding

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Although the focus in the early grades is often on teaching young children how to read, the ultimate goal of reading is to understand the text-whether to learn new information or simply enjoy a story. Building the groundwork needed for this understanding starts right from the beginning of life-and it's essential from the beginning of school.

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Writing has many benefits. It can improve children's speaking, boost their reading comprehension, build their knowledge, and elevate their thinking. But one reason it's hard to learn is that without explicit writing instruction, children often write the way they speak.

From elementary through high school, many children answer questions with little elaboration. Others tend to ramble on, giving unnecessary information in a disorganized fashion. It's not unusual to see the same tendencies in their writing. With the strategies shared in this article, your child will be on their way to becoming a clear thinker and coherent communicator-not just in school but for the rest of their life. We can see some of this progress with Michael.

Ms. Worth, mother of 10-year-old Michael, looked forward to hearing about his day at school. However, when asked, Michael always gave the same answer: "Good."

After reading about the benefits of explicit writing instruction, ¹ Ms. Worth decided to try an approach that seemed to make sense to her: sentence stems. But she didn't ask Michael to write; she just added them to their conversation. When Michael provided his usual response, "Good," she asked him to turn the following sentence stems into complete sentences:
School was good because _____. School was good, but _____. School was good, so _____.
Ms. Worth learned that Michael had a good day because his class visited the aquarium. Michael's day was good, but he had to write about the field trip. Finally, Michael shared "School was good today, so I hope tomorrow is, too."

Michael was able to provide much more information to his mother when she gave him an approach that incorporated the conjunctions because, but, and so than if she had just asked her usual question, "How was your day?"

Although the because/but/so strategy was developed to help students with their writing, there are great benefits to using it orally, too-especially at home. It gives children a structure to extend and elaborate their verbal responses. And, when children offer their families even a few more details, great conversations are often sparked.

Since the sentence stems worked well, Ms. Worth also started using them to extend Michael's written responses when she helped him with his homework. She found that this strategy had a great impact when applied to the content he was studying.

For example, when Michael was learning about the American Revolution in school, he read about the causes of the conflict. Rather than asking "Why did many colonists want to break away from Great Britain?," Ms. Worth tried checking his understanding by giving him the following sentence stems:

Prompting children with because, but, and so is a simple yet powerful strategy. It requires children to think more analytically, while also teaching them how to extend their written responses.

Writing Complex Sentences

Like so many children, Michael often writes the way he speaks-and the quality of his writing may suffer as a result. Written language generally requires more precision than spoken language because the reader of a text cannot ask for clarification the way a listener can (i.e., when you're reading a book, you can't ask the author what a confusing sentence means). In addition, the sentence structure of written language is more complex than the language we generally use in conversation. Writers often use multiple clauses and subordinating conjunctions such as although, since, before, after, and if, especially at the beginning of a sentence. If children are unfamiliar with those structures, they are more likely to struggle with understanding what they read. But when they learn to use more complex sentences in their own writing, their reading comprehension often improves. ² Their writing quality improves as well.

Wanting her son to continue developing as a writer, Ms. Worth helped him practice writing more complex sentences-and in reading his work, she could assess his comprehension of the text he had been assigned on the American Revolution. She gave him the beginning of a sentence, and he needed to supply the rest (Michael's responses are shown in italics).

After the Sons of Liberty dumped tea in Boston Harbor, Parliament punished the colonists with the Intolerable Acts.

Although the British military was well-equipped, the colonists' knowledge of the land helped them win the war.

Expanding Sentences

When responding to questions, Michael, like many children, often omits information that he assumes a reader or listener already knows. In the sentence expansion strategy, children add information to a simple sentence, called a kernel, by answering the relevant question words: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Ms. Worth decided to add this strategy. Michael found it fun to use when given a kernel that allowed him to use his imagination, such as He ran. Practicing it at home improved his writing for school assignments-and his mom enjoyed hearing the answers he'd dream up.

Continuing the revolution theme in his social studies class, Michael was asked to complete a sentence expansion activity about Gandhi leading the Salt March. He knew that when he saw dotted lines under the kernel, he didn't have to write complete sentences, just key words and phrases. Still, his written responses allowed his mother to check his understanding of the text about Gandhi.

As with the because/but/so activity, parents and caregivers can practice this sentence expansion strategy with their children using academic or everyday content, and in any grade level and subject area. The example below about leaves changing color demonstrates that even first-graders can become adept at expanding sentences.

Planning Paragraphs

One of the most effective ways to make writing easier for children is to teach them how to develop a plan before writing a paragraph. Like the sentence stems and expanders, you can help your child at home by helping them practice using the single-paragraph outline.

The single-paragraph outline enables even young students to begin developing a coherent paragraph by planning a topic sentence, supporting details, and a concluding sentence. Since this is intended to be a plan-not a draft-just ask your child to write notes on the detail lines, not complete sentences. Here's an example from a first-grader after an exciting field trip.

This strategy can even work with preschoolers and kindergartners. If your child isn't writing yet, have them dictate the most important words and phrases for you to write on the dotted lines. For older children like Michael, this single-paragraph outline still works well. In the following outline about deforestation for a school assignment, Michael used symbols to show relationships between ideas.

While the goal is for your child to be able to develop an outline independently, in the beginning they will need your help in learning how to develop topic and concluding sentences and how to select and sequence appropriate details.

Writing may be the most cognitively demanding academic skill we expect children to master. For many, crafting clear sentences is challenging, and producing paragraphs is even more difficult. Written assignments often require knowledge of the subject matter, awareness of one's audience, varied vocabulary, logically sequenced information, and a consistent focus on the topic. Fortunately, the strategies in this article, as well as others available for free here, can improve children's oral and written responses. And, by helping your child with these strategies, you'll learn a lot more about their experiences, thoughts, and feelings as your prompts encourage them to open up.

Judith C. Hochman, former head of The Windward School in White Plains, New York, is the founder of  The Writing Revolution and a coauthor (with Natalie Wexler) of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades. Toni-Ann Vroom and Dina Zoleo are co-chief executive officers and founding members of The Writing Revolution.

Endnotes

1. J. Hochman and N. Wexler, The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017).

2. C. Scott, "A Case for the Sentence in Reading Comprehension," Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 40 (2009): 184-91.

[illustrations: Jessie Lin]

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Writing has many benefits. It can improve children's speaking, boost their reading comprehension, build their knowledge, and elevate their thinking. But one reason it's hard to learn is that without explicit writing instruction, children often write the way they speak. From elementary through high school, many children answer questions with little elaboration.

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When my son Sam was about three, we had something like the following conversation in the kitchen, near the back door of our house.

Sam: Why did you lock the door?

Me: So people can't get in.

Sam: Why?

Me: Well, they might take something.

Sam: Why?

Me: I don't know, they might not have some things they need.

Sam: Why?

Me: Maybe they don't have much money.

Sam: Why?

Me: Well, maybe they don't have jobs.

Sam: Why?

At the time, I wasn't thrilled about all these questions: How do you explain crime, poverty, and unemployment to a three-year-old? But I now realize that this back and forth was an important part of my son's education. I won't say that it led to his current job as a public defender, but I'm confident that conversations like this-we had many-were crucial to the language skills and vocabulary that helped him understand what he was expected to read and learn in school.

For children to become strong readers, they need to learn a huge number of words-at least 100,000 by the time they get to eighth grade. ¹ It's impossible to teach that much vocabulary directly; children gain most of their vocabulary indirectly, as their knowledge of the world expands. ² Much of this learning happens through conversations and read-alouds. So parents and caregivers play a crucial role in giving their children access to the vocabulary, complex sentence structure, and knowledge they need to be successful, beginning at birth. ³

Conversational Turns

One way of helping your child become a confident reader is simply to engage in back-and-forth conversations like the one I had with my son. Studies have found that children's development is closely linked to the number of "conversational turns" they experience. ⁴ Conversational turns happen when an adult speaks and a child responds, or vice versa-like a game of Ping-Pong. The "conversation" doesn't even have to use words. Even if your baby just coos or your toddler makes up words-and you respond-it counts. ⁵

Everyday activities provide lots of opportunities to engage in conversational turns. In the supermarket, for example, you can have dialogues about different kinds of apples or where milk comes from. At home, when your child is playing with blocks or dolls, you can comment on what they're doing.

But studies have shown that certain kinds of interactions are more powerful than others. ⁶ In powerful conversations, you provide

words for actions and objects that interest your child ("Yes, that's a bird singing up there in the tree");

familiar routines and repeated language, making the words predictable and easier to learn (like playing peekaboo before bedtime); and

lots of opportunities for taking turns, participating equally, and generally enjoying yourselves.

It's also a good idea to follow your child's interests, letting them take the lead.

Read-Alouds

Conversations with children-important as they are-aren't enough to equip them to become good readers. It's also crucial to read aloud to kids. That won't teach a child how to read, or "decode," written words; most children will need systematic instruction from well-trained teachers to be able to do that.* But reading aloud to children can build the kind of knowledge and vocabulary they need to understand the written texts they'll be expected to read in school-and in life.

Why isn't conversation enough? Written language is more complex than spoken language. ⁷ Writers use words that don't generally appear in conversation-like despite or moreover -and they use a lot more words. And writers don't explain every word or phrase they use (because their writing wouldn't be much fun to read if they did). Instead, they assume readers know what most of the words mean.

The structure of sentences in written language is also more complex than those we use in conversation. Written sentences tend to be longer, sometimes using unclear pronouns, passive verbs, and lots of subordinate clauses. If you're not familiar with that kind of sentence structure, it can be hard to make sense of a text even if you can read and understand the individual words. ⁸

Children can learn a lot from books even before they're able to talk-especially if they have a caring adult to guide them. If you're showing your child a picture book, you can point to the pictures and say the names of the objects they depict. And after your child learns to read, it's important to continue reading aloud: in addition to being a nice way to spend time together, it's a way to introduce your child to vocabulary and concepts in books they can't yet read independently. Researchers have found that children's listening comprehension exceeds their reading comprehension through about age 13, on average. ⁹

Conversational Read-Alouds

Even better than just reading aloud is to combine it with conversational turns. Asking and answering questions about a book you're reading together is a great way to help your child understand and remember the new concepts and vocabulary in the text. You might ask what your child thinks is going to happen next in a story, or why a character behaved in a certain way.

Better yet is to read a series of books on the same general topic-maybe sea mammals, airplanes, or the solar system. It's definitely worthwhile to read fiction and poetry, but books that convey information about the world have the most potential to build the kind of knowledge that fuels reading comprehension. And children usually need to hear the same concepts and vocabulary repeatedly in different contexts to truly understand and remember them.

These don't have to be dry, informational books-although kids can actually get very interested in those. Both children and adults tend to find it easier to understand and retain information from stories, ¹⁰ but those stories don't have to be made up. Children can learn a lot about science from a biography of a scientist, for example. And history is basically a series of stories; kids can find history fascinating if it's presented in an engaging way. If you're not sure what books would be right for your child, ask a librarian for suggestions.

If your child shows a particular interest in a topic, it's also a great idea to nurture that interest by going beyond books. If your child is fascinated by sharks, maybe you can find an aquarium to visit. If your child's passion is for something more easily available, like insects or rocks, a walk in a park could be a rich educational experience. Just remember the importance of those conversational turns: ask and answer questions about what you're seeing, ideally connecting them to books you've read together.

There may be times when you don't feel like answering your child's questions-as I did when I was just trying to lock our back door. And of course it's not always possible to stop whatever you're doing and read a book or engage in a conversational turn. But it's important to remember that having back-and-forth exchanges with young children, exposing them to the complexity of written language, and feeding their natural curiosity will put them on the path to becoming successful readers and learners.

Natalie Wexler, a former lawyer and legal historian, is an education writer and the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System-and How to Fix It (Avery, 2019). She is also a coauthor (with Judith C. Hochman) of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades (Jossey-Bass, 2017) and a senior contributor to the education channel on Forbes.com. Her newsletter, Minding the Gap, is available for free on Substack.

* For tips on helping your child learn foundational reading skills, see the article by Nell K. Duke here. ( return to article)

Endnotes

1. M. Adams, "Advancing Our Students' Language and Literacy," American Educator 34, no. 4 (Winter 2010-2011): 3-11, 53.

2. Adams, "Advancing Our Students' Language."

3. N. Wexler, "Building Knowledge: What an Elementary Curriculum Should Do," American Educator 44, no. 2 (Summer 2020): 18-21, 39-40.

4. LENA, "Why Early Talk?," lena.org/conversational-turns.

5. LENA, "Why Early Talk?"

6. L. Lowry, "It's Quality, Not Just Quantity, That Helps Your Child Develop Language," Hanen Centre, hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Articles/Its-Quality-Not-Just-Quantity-That-Helps-Your-C.aspx.

7. D. Massaro, "Reading Aloud to Children: Benefits and Implications for Acquiring Literacy Before Schooling Begins," American Journal of Psychology 130, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 63-72.

8. C. Scott and C. Balthazar, "The Role of Complex Sentence Knowledge in Children with Reading and Writing Difficulties," Perspectives on Language and Literacy 39, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 18-30.

9. D. Fisher and N. Frey, "Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning," Reading Rockets, readingrockets.org/article/speaking-and-listening-content-area-learning.

10. D. Willingham, "Ask the Cognitive Scientist: The Privileged Status of Story," American Educator 28, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 43-45, 51-53.

[illustrations: Simona Mulazzani]

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When my son Sam was about three, we had something like the following conversation in the kitchen, near the back door of our house. Sam: Why did you lock the door? Me: So people can't get in. Sam: Why? Me: Well, they might take something. Sam: Why?

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Reading Resources

​​

​Get Ready to Read

Get Ready to Read! is designed to support educators, parents, and young children in the development of early literacy skills in the years before kindergarten. Intended for use with all children, the resources and information provided on this site promote skill-building, communication between adults, and ways to address concerns. http://www.getreadytoread.org/

PBS Kids Reading Games

​PBS KIDS is committed to making a positive impact on the lives of children through curriculum-based entertainment. With a 360-degree approach towards learning and reaching children, PBS KIDS leverages the full spectrum of media and technology to build knowledge, critical thinking, imagination, and curiosity. By involving parents, teachers, caregivers, and communities as learning partners, PBS KIDS helps to empower children for success in school and in life.​

The Peter Rabbit Website

The Peter Rabbit Website is dedicated to all things Peter Rabbit and Beatrix Potter. The website allows users to play interactively with the Beatrix Potter characters we all know and love. Everything from patining, to reading, to journal writing is freely available. https://www.peterrabbit.com/ ​​

RIF (Reading is Fundamental) Leading to Reading

Founded in 1966, Reading Is Fundamental is the leading voice for children's literacy. We address the alarming literacy crisis in America today through strong leadership, quality content, and an active and engaged community.

Sesame Street Online

Mission-driven. Kid Focused. We care about one thing: children. And we're working to meet their needs in all sorts of ways: educating with great shows and other content full of endearing characters and proven educational value, enriching lives and creating possibilities with social impact work around the world, and building experiences that bring families of all shapes and sizes together. ​ https://www.sesamestreet.org/ ​

Starfall.com® opened in September 2002 as a free public service to teach children to read. Since then it has expanded to include language arts and mathematics for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third grade. Starfall's emphasis on phonemic awareness, systematic sequential phonics, and common sight words in conjunction with audiovisual interactivity has proven effective in teaching emergent readers. Starfall activities are research-based and align with Individual and Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics.​ https://www.starfall.com/h/ ​

​The SAG-AFTRA Foundation's award-winning children's literacy website, Storyline Online, streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children's books alongside creatively produced illustrations. Readers include Viola Davis, Chris Pine, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, James Earl Jones, Betty White and dozens more. https://www.storylineonline.net/ ​

Storyplace: The Children's Digital Library

For years children and their families have enjoyed attending storytimes, checking out materials and participating in a variety of other programs at the various Charlotte Mecklenburg Library locations. StoryPlace came about to provide children with the virtual experience of going to the Library and participating in the same types of activities the Library offers at its physical locations. First launched in 2000, StoryPlace has been newly redesigned to present favorite stories and activities in a format compatible with desktop and mobile devices. The site also now includes early literacy information for parents and caregivers. https://www.storyplace.org/ ​​

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​​ Get Ready to Read! is designed to support educators, parents, and young children in the development of early literacy skills in the years before kindergarten. Intended for use with all children, the resources and information provided on this site promote skill-building, communication between adults, and ways to address concerns.

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Teach spelling by creating customized lessons based on the sounds the student knows. Drag and drop letters to spell a word!

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El compromiso y la alfabetización familiar son dos de las claves o componentes más importantes para construir una base sólida para el éxito académico de los niños. En los años que van desde el nacimiento hasta el preescolar, incluso antes de que su hijo ponga un pie en un entorno escolar académico, usted es el primer y el más importante maestro de su hijo.

El compromiso familiar consiste en pasar tiempo de calidad con su hijo todos los días: hablando, jugando y haciendo preguntas. A medida que interactúa, crea vínculos y promueve el desarrollo del lenguaje de su hijo. Muchos de nuestros primeros recuerdos son de pasar tiempo con seres queridos y hacer cosas juntos. Este compromiso puede consistir en cualquier cosa que disfruten: leer juntos, pasear, trabajar en el jardín, cuidar mascotas, participar en juegos, cocinar juntos o cantar juntos. Si bien estas actividades pueden parecer más naturales con niños de tres y cuatro años, los pequeños desde el nacimiento hasta los dos años también necesitan que usted les lea, cante y les hable, tanto como necesitan de sus sonrisas, besos y abrazos. A través de estas cálidas interacciones, también le estará enseñando a su hijo a hablar. Escuchándolo a usted es la forma como los bebés y los niños pequeños aprenden patrones del lenguaje y del vocabulario.

La alfabetización familiar consiste en apoyar el desarrollo de la alfabetización de su hijo proporcionándole un entorno rico en material impreso, leyendo en voz alta y utilizándolo para suscitar conversaciones. Esto no tiene por qué costar dinero. ¡La impresión nos rodea! Solo en la cocina, hay palabras en etiquetas de latas, tapas de cajas, paquetes de cereales y muchas cosas más. Las familias pueden utilizar estos artículos (que generalmente se tiran) para desarrollar en sus hijos la comprensión de las palabras y los números. Con su hijo, puede leer una receta de la parte posterior de una caja, hablar sobre las granjas donde se cultivan los alimentos o sobre el ciclo de vida de las plantas en su jardín o en un parque cercano. Y, con su ayuda, su hijo puede recortar etiquetas y hacer dibujos para colocarlos en un diario, capturando así una historia diaria sobre lo que están cocinando juntos.

A medida que las familias hablan con sus hijos a lo largo de estas experiencias cotidianas, desarrollan sólidas habilidades lingüísticas que ayudarán a sus hijos en la escuela. Para asegurarse de que su hijo se convierta en un lector seguro de sí mismo, hay seis habilidades clave para ayudarlo a desarrollarse desde el nacimiento hasta la escuela primaria y estudios posteriores.

Lenguaje oral: escuchar y hablar con familiares y amigos;

Vocabulario: aprender y utilizar palabras que transmitan un significado a un nivel rico (por ejemplo, después de aprender grande, su hijo está listo para gigantesco y enorme);

Conciencia fonológica:escuchar sonidos dentro del idioma (por ejemplo, la palabra sonidos comienza y termina con el sonido /s/);

Relaciones sonido-letra (principio alfabético): relacionar los sonidos de las palabras con las letras que los representan (por ejemplo, el sonido /s/ se representa con la letra s, como en sonido, y la letra c, como en círculo);

Fluidez: leer con precisión y rapidez con facilidad (comenzando con textos básicos en los primeros grados de primaria y progresando a textos complejos en la escuela secundaria y estudios posteriores); y

Comprensión: comprender lo que se lee y escucha (desde libros ilustrados hasta debates en clase y libros de texto universitarios).

He aquí algunos ejemplos de formas divertidas en las que puede apoyar a su hijo(a) a desarrollar estas seis habilidades cruciales.

Cuéntele a su hijo cómo le fue a usted en su día y pregúntele a él sobre su día.

Haga que su hijo escuche palabras que tengan los mismos sonidos iniciales que usted habla sobre su día, como me/mi, los/las y carro/cara.

Busque palabras que comiencen con la misma letra, como María/Monica y cocina/cocodrilo, o que terminen con sonidos que hagan que las palabras rimen, como casa/masa y día/tía.

Haga una lista de palabras que son nuevas ese día. Agregue a la lista todos los días en un calendario o en un diario.

Lea en voz alta todos los días, mostrándole a su hijo cómo leer sin problemas. Pueden turnarse: lea unas pocas palabras o una oración y luego su hijo las repite.

Haga preguntas sobre el día de su hijo: ¿Qué hiciste en la escuela que fuera diferente? ¿Te gustó una actividad en particular en la escuela hoy?

Explique lo que está haciendo mientras cocina.

Haga que su hijo juegue a palmear
las sílabas de las
palabras que está
usando en la cocina
que terminan con
-an como: pan, mezclan, coman, doran y muelan.

Anote las palabras -an utilizadas mientras cocinaba.
Pídale a su hijo que de una palmada a cada de las sílabas que escuche nuevamente, luego háblele y muéstrele cómo todas terminan con-an y suenan
igual.

Pídale a su hijo que diga tantas palabras -an como pueda pensar. Escríbalas (y puede usar esta lista otro día para palmear las sílabas).

Lea en voz alta partes
de las etiquetas utilizadas mientras cocina. Contienen información matemática (como el tamaño de las porciones), información
geográfica (de dónde proceden los alimentos) e información de alfabetización (hay mucho que leer) en ellas.

Haga preguntas sobre el proceso de cocción de los alimentos y los ingredientes, como: ¿Qué pasó primero, segundo, tercero, siguiente, último? ¿Qué se necesitaba para hacer esta comida? ¿De dónde procedía la comida?

Hable sobre el medio ambiente, como el clima y las estaciones del año.

Haga que su hijo
cante canciones
que rimen sobre el
clima y escuche las
palabras que riman,
como nube y tuve.

Escriba nuevas
palabras de
vocabulario
meteorológico en
un diario o en un
calendario.

Lea en voz alta
un libro sobre las
nubes, el clima o las
estaciones del año
varias veces para
que su hijo pueda
escucharlo leer con
fluidez.

Hable sobre lo que
leyó en el libro sobre
las nubes, el clima o
las estaciones y haga
preguntas sobre lo
que leyó. Cuando
el clima sea como
el del libro, lleve a
su hijo afuera para
experimentarlo.

Este importante período entre el nacimiento y los 4 años es crítico para desarrollar la base de su hijo para el éxito en la escuela. De hecho, alrededor del 90 por ciento del crecimiento de su cerebro ocurre antes del jardín de infancia.

Las cuatro Es que son importantes que las familias recuerden mientras juegan, enseñan y hablan con su hijo son:

Experiencias: haga cosas con su hijo;

Expresiones: hable con su hijo;

Explicaciones: responda a preguntas y fomente la curiosidad; y

Extras: lleve a su hijo a oportunidades gratuitas o de bajo costo como un parque, un mercado de agricultores, la playa, un bosque o las montañas.

Estas cuatro Es cubren muchas de las bases para ayudar a su hijo a convertirse en un buen lector y tener éxito en la escuela. Incluyen, por supuesto, el compromiso y la alfabetización familiar. Y lo que es más importante, ¡pasarán mucho tiempo de calidad juntos!

Rebecca A. Palacios enseñó en aulas de primera infancia durante más de 30 años en Corpus Christi, Texas. Es mentora de maestros, ex vicepresidenta de la Junta Nacional de Estándares de Enseñanza Profesional y autora de Usted es el maestro más importante de su hijo: Una guía para familias con niños pequeños.

[ilustrado: Laura González]

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El compromiso y la alfabetización familiar

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El compromiso y la alfabetización familiar son dos de las claves o componentes más importantes para construir una base sólida para el éxito académico de los niños. En los años que van desde el nacimiento hasta el preescolar, incluso antes de que su hijo ponga un pie en un entorno escolar académico, usted es el primer y el más importante maestro de su hijo.

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Family engagement and family literacy are two of the most important keys, or components, for building a strong foundation for children's academic success. In the years from birth through prekindergarten-before your child even sets foot in an academic school setting-you are their first and most important teacher.

Family engagement is about spending quality time with your child every day: talking, playing, and asking questions. As you interact, you build bonds and promote your child's language development. Many of our earliest memories are of spending time with loved ones and doing things together. This engagement can be whatever you enjoy: reading together, taking walks, gardening, caring for pets, playing games, cooking together, or singing together. While these activities might seem more natural with three- and four-year-olds, little ones from birth through age two also need you to read, sing, and talk to them-just as much as they need your smiles, kisses, and hugs. Through these warm interactions, you'll also be teaching your child how to talk. Listening to you is how babies and young children learn patterns of language and vocabulary.

Family literacy is about supporting your child's literacy development by providing a print-rich environment, reading aloud, and using print to spark conversations. This does not have to cost any money. Print is all around us! In the kitchen alone, there are words on can labels, box tops, cereal packages, and so much more. Families can use these items (that are usually thrown away) to develop their children's understanding of words and numbers. With your child, you can read a recipe from the back of a box, talk about the farms where foods are grown, or talk about the life cycle of plants in your yard or a nearby park. And, with your help, your child can cut out labels and draw pictures to place in a journal, capturing a daily story about what you are cooking together.

As families talk with their children throughout these everyday experiences, they are building strong language skills that will help their children in school. To make sure your child becomes a confident reader, there are six key skills for you to help them develop from birth through elementary school and beyond:

Oral language: listen to and speak with family members and friends;

Vocabulary: learn and use words to convey meaning at a rich level (for example, after learning big, your child is ready for gigantic and enormous);

Phonological awareness: hear sounds within the language (for example, the word sounds begins and ends with the /s/ sound);

Sound-letter relationships (alphabetic principle): connect the sounds in words to the letters that represent them (for example, the /s/ sound is represented with the letter s, as in sound, and the letter c, as in circle);

Fluency: read accurately and quickly with ease (starting with basic texts in early elementary grades and progressing to complex texts in high school and beyond); and

Comprehension:understand what is being read and heard (from picture books to classroom discussions to college textbooks).

Below are some examples of fun ways you can support your child in developing these six crucial skills.

Talk to your child about your day and ask them about their day.

Have your child listen for words that have the same initial sounds as you talk about your day, like me/my, rain/run, and car/care.

Look for words that begin with the same letter, like Mary/Monica and cook/clean, or end with sounds that make the words rhyme, like hat/mat and day/stay.

Make a list of words that are new that day. Add to the list every day on a calendar or in a journal.

Read aloud every day, showing your child how to read smoothly. You can take turns: you read a few words or a sentence and then your child repeats you.

Ask questions about your child's day: What did you do at school that was different? Did you like a particular activity at school today?

Explain what you are doing as you are cooking.

Have your child play a game clapping out the syllables of words that you are using in the kitchen that end in -ing, such as cooking, washing, stirring, grilling, mashing, and chopping.

Write down the -ing words used as you cooked. Have your child clap the syllables again, then talk about and show how they all end with -ing and sound the same.

Ask your child to say as many -ing words as they can think of. Write them down (and you can use this list on another day to clap the syllables).

Read aloud parts of the labels used as you are cooking. They have math (like portion size), geography (where the food comes from), and literacy (so much to read) in them.

Ask questions about the cooking process and the ingredients, such as What happened first, second, third, next, last? What was needed to make this food? Where did the food come from?

Discuss the environment, such as the weather and the seasons of the year.

Have your child sing rhyming songs about the weather and listen for the rhyming words, like sunny and funny.

Write down weather words, like sun, wind, fog, rain, and snow, then sound them out.

Write down new weather vocabulary words in a journal or on a calendar.

Read aloud a book on clouds, weather, or the seasons of the year several times so your child can hear you read with fluency.

Discuss what you read in the book on clouds, weather, or the seasons and ask questions about what you read. When the weather is like what it is in the book, take your child outside to experience it.

This important time between birth and age four is critical for developing your child's foundation for success in school. In fact, about 90 percent of their brain's growth happens before kindergarten.

The four Es that are important for families to remember as you play, teach, and talk with your child are

Experiences: do things with your child;

Expressions:talk to your child;

Explanations: answer questions and encourage curiosity; and

Extras: take your child to free or low-cost opportunities like a park, a farmers' market, the beach, a forest, or the mountains.

These four Es cover many of the bases for helping your child become a strong reader and succeed in school. They include, of course, family engagement and family literacy. More importantly, you'll spend a lot of quality time together!

Rebecca A. Palacios taught in early childhood classrooms for more than 30 years in Corpus Christi, Texas. She is a teacher mentor, the former vice chair of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and the author of Being Your Child's Most Important Teacher: A Guide for Families with Young Children.

[illustrations: Laura González]

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Family engagement and family literacy are two of the most important keys, or components, for building a strong foundation for children's academic success. In the years from birth through prekindergarten-before your child even sets foot in an academic school setting-you are their first and most important teacher.

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Scholastic Watch and Learn Library | A Video Library for Early Learners

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Watch Knowledge Grow with Real-World Videos! Grades Pre-K to 3, In English and Spanish

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What is PebbleGo Next?

PebbleGo Next is the ideal enhancement to your PebbleGo subscription. With it, you'll provide 3rd-5th grade students with hundreds of curriculum-connected articles designed for their specific needs in:

How PebbleGo Next helps:

Engages upper elementary students with subject matter created for, and correlated to, state & national curriculum standards

Increases understanding, regardless of reading ability with scaffolding supports:

Authentic read-aloud audio

Academic vocabulary words with definitions

Images, video, and audio in each article

Enhances instruction with critical thinking questions to encourage reflection and connection

Fosters independence in learners with simple, consistent navigation

The PebbleGo Next experience has been upgraded.

New, modern look with all of the functionality and features you and your students love.

Access matters.

PebbleGo Next is accessible to students of all abilities and is Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 AA compliant.

Any device. Anywhere.

PebbleGo Next is fully mobile-responsive, ensuring students can access the database on smartphones, tablets, and computers.

Ease and choice.

A new, connected PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next experience makes it easier than ever to find nonfiction content at the appropriate reading and interest levels.

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Take the next step in digital citizenship and research when you add all 4 PebbleGo Next modules to supplement your existing PebbleGo subscription.

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Aprender a leer y escribir en dos o más idiomas

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Learning to Read and Write in Two-or More-Languages

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Home-based language experiences and development are very important throughout childhood, so families should continue to engage in the activities described in the previous article. Once children start elementary school, it's also important to focus on learning the letters, letter sounds, and how they combine to form words.

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Helping your child learn to read is important-and can feel overwhelming. Even if you are able to talk to your child's teacher often, you probably still have questions about literacy. Wanting to help answer those questions, we partnered with the National Parent Teacher Association to get a list of questions from parents for reading teachers. Then, we brought together a group of current teachers and teachers-turned-researchers to answer them. You are your child's first and most important teacher; we hope this guide helps you feel confident as you help your child develop a love of reading.

-EDITORS

1. What are the building blocks of literacy?

The original building block of literacy is early oral language, representing children's developing capacity to understand and produce the words and sentence structures of the language(s) they speak. Oral language skills, including an ever-expanding vocabulary, are critically important for literacy. They are one of the necessary foundations underneath successful reading comprehension. The stronger children's oral language skills, the more readily they will be able to comprehend what they read.

Another necessary foundation for reading comprehension is skilled word reading, including automatic recognition of familiar words and the ability to "decode" or sound out unfamiliar words. How is skilled word reading developed? One building block that leads to skilled decoding is alphabet knowledge-matching the printed forms and sounds of each letter. Another building block that supports skilled decoding is the ability to identify and manipulate the sounds within words. Together, these two foundational skills allow children to "crack the code" and begin decoding: first simple one-syllable words, then more advanced words with multiple syllables and more complex spelling patterns. The more words children successfully decode, the more words they automatically recognize the next time they see them, and the more fluent their reading becomes.

All along the way, children are drawing upon their language skills to help them decode and comprehend what they are reading. As text becomes more complex, these oral language skills become increasingly relevant. This is why it is so important to support children's language skills before, while, and after they learn to read.

2. When can you really tell that literacy is hard for your child?

Learning to read takes many years, so it can be hard to tell if your child is on track or needs extra support. Among young children, early signs that learning to read may be challenging for a child include difficulties with oral language, with manipulating sounds within words, and with learning the alphabet. These and other things to look for in three- to five-year-old children are described by Beth M. Phillips here.

For more details on the phases that children move through as they learn to read, see Linnea C. Ehri's article here. If your child does not seem to be progressing steadily through these phases, see the article by Sharon Vaughn and Jack M. Fletcher on helping children who are struggling readers, here.

It is also important to recognize that some children who do not have trouble learning to decode may still face challenges with reading comprehension. See Sonia Q. Cabell's article here, where she discusses what early instruction should look like to support comprehension. Also see Natalie Wexler's article here about supporting comprehension and knowledge acquisition through conversations about what you are reading with your child.

3. How important is fluency? And when should children stop working on fluency?

Fluency becomes important as soon as children begin to read texts and stays important even for proficient readers. Fluency is the ability to read accurately, quickly, and with appropriate expression. Fluency supports comprehension. When children become fluent readers, they read with ease and their reading sounds a lot like their talking. Fluency frees the reader to think about the meaning of the text. If a child reads slowly and haltingly, having to focus on sounding out words, then it is very hard to understand the information and ideas shared in the sentences. Fluency also represents comprehension. When you read out loud, you vary your tone of voice and pause at the right times; this indicates that you are understanding the text, and it helps listeners understand too.

By the end of elementary school, children should be able to read relatively simple chapter books and informational texts fluently-but they may need to practice reading more complex texts easily and accurately. This remains true even for advanced readers. When advanced readers encounter new texts with many rare words, especially multisyllabic words, their typically fluent reading may slow down. Complex sentence structures can also be a challenge to fluent reading. Practicing a text several times can assist with presenting it fluently to others.

If your child can correctly sound out words but does so with difficulty, they need more practice reading. As Diane August recommends in Spanish here (and in English here), "ask your child's teacher for texts that your child can practice reading aloud to you every night."

4. How does technology help literacy skills?

Technology can support children who are learning to read in a variety of ways. Elementary school teachers often use programs that range from helping a child sound out a specific word to reading a whole book to a child. Programs like these offer practice and individualized help while the teacher is busy with other children. Many computer programs and apps are also available to support children with specific needs. They can include accessibility features that remove barriers that children may otherwise face in accessing print.

However, technology does not replace the need for children to be taught and encouraged by caring adults-you, other family members and caregivers, and teachers. Not all technology is created equally. For example, sometimes technology can have features that are distracting, such as buttons during a read-aloud that don't support the meaning of the story. Also, when it comes to children's learning, there is no substitute for warm and responsive back-and-forth conversations and interactions.

5. How is literacy connected to writing?

There is a reciprocal relationship between reading and writing. In fact, literacy researchers and teachers talk about decoding (sounding words out) and en coding (spelling words). Both rely on the same foundational knowledge: knowing the sounds that make up words and the letters that represent those sounds. At the same time, practice in writing helps children build their reading skills. This is especially true for younger children. As they are learning how letters represent sounds and how to sound words out, it's helpful to also practice spelling words.

When children read extensively, they also become better writers. Reading a variety of genres (e.g., science fiction, memoirs, and poetry) helps children learn text structures and language that they can transfer to their own writing in other formats (e.g., a short story or a persuasive essay). In addition, reading provides young people with background knowledge that they can use when they write.

To help your three- to six-year-old start writing, check out the tips offered by Nell K. Duke here. And to help your elementary school child become a better writer, turn to the article by Judith C. Hochman, Toni-Ann Vroom, and Dina Zoleo here.

6. There is a saying that after third grade, children are no longer learning to read but are reading to learn. Why is that, and is it too late to develop reading skills?

A child doesn't need to wait until third grade to read to learn about the world around them. In fact, it is never too early to start developing the skills that set the stage for reading to learn! It's true that educators must focus on teaching children foundational reading skills in the beginning of elementary school so they become confident readers (and writers) during elementary school. Linnea C. Ehri explains the phases of foundational skill development here. But foundational skills alone won't prepare your child to read to learn-that also requires oral language and knowledge development. Even before children can fluently decode words, they can learn through listening to books read aloud by teachers, parents, and other caregivers. The language of books is more formal than the language we use in daily conversations and often includes vocabulary we don't usually use while speaking. Also, the conversations that take place before, during, and after reading aloud are important to children's learning. Learn how to help your child understand texts in the articles by Sonia Q. Cabell here and Natalie Wexler here.

Thankfully, it is never too late to develop reading skills! Even with good early instruction, some children in later grades face significant difficulties learning to read. With explicit instruction, practice, and support, they can make great strides. If your child is struggling to read, stay determined and hopeful-and see the article by Sharon Vaughn and Jack M. Fletcher here.

7. Why does dyslexia seem to be diagnosed more than it used to be, and why doesn't that immediately mean children need services?

There is increased awareness about dyslexia that may be leading to more children being diagnosed. Providing initial screenings of all children allows schools to identify those who may need additional evaluation to determine whether they should receive a dyslexia diagnosis. Early diagnosis is especially critical for helping children with reading challenges and disabilities, including dyslexia. Timely diagnosis enables children to receive focused, evidence-based instruction that meets their needs. Diagnosis also ensures that children receive appropriate accommodations within the school setting.

As Sharon Vaughn and Jack M. Fletcher discuss, there is a wide range of skills among children who have dyslexia. Therefore, not all will require the same level or type of supportive services. High-quality instruction and intervention for all children, including those with dyslexia, meet children where they currently are and help them to advance their reading skills. To learn how you can partner with your child's teacher in this process, turn to the article by Vaughn and Fletcher here.

[photos: Suzannah Hoover and Bob Riha, Jr.]

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Seven Questions You Always Wanted to Ask a Reading Teacher

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Helping your child learn to read is important-and can feel overwhelming. Even if you are able to talk to your child's teacher often, you probably still have questions about literacy. Wanting to help answer those questions, we partnered with the National Parent Teacher Association to get a list of questions from parents for reading teachers.