In this post, I would like to share some thoughts about reading together at home and encourage you to support your child if they struggle with reading.

I want to reiterate that you can do much more for your child’s reading than the school, even if you’re not a professional. Children spend six hours a day in school but little to no time is spent on personalised support. The teacher lacks the time to work with individual students, the schools usually lack the expertise to deal with reading difficulties and how to work on them and lack the funds to provide extensive individual support.

It’s hard though to give general advice because what you need to do depends a lot on how old your child is, how much they are behind the expected level and what kind of difficulty they might have. Unsurprisingly, the main message of my advice is that you get better at reading by practising reading. That sounds simple enough, but it isn’t always that simple. What they read can be very important, as well as how much and how often, with more individual circumstances too.

Before I go on to some suggestions, allow me a little remark. In some cases, practising reading with your child might be nearly if not completely impossible. A frustrated child and a frustrated parent might find it very hard to do any kind of worthwhile reading practice together without becoming even more frustrated. You might not understand why on earth the child can’t focus for ten minutes. On the other hand, your child can find the whole struggle with reading unbearable, let alone having the struggle carry on out of school.

This is a scenario when I would definitely suggest seeking professional support and advice. Not only can you get a better understanding of the difficulties your child is facing but the child can get some comfort from practising with someone else, doing activities that are matched to his skills and supporting them with making some real progress. Do this before it’s too late and your then teenage child refuses to practise with anyone.

That out of the way, my advice is to introduce a daily reading regime. I know it may sound slightly radical, especially to your child, so you need to plan carefully how you should sell it. 

Some points to make:

• Depending on your child’s age it’s generally better if you get involved (definitely with a primary-aged child). Just sending them off to their room to do the practising will usually not be enough. Just your involvement can make all the difference.
• Remember, reading is supposed to be fun, and try to approach it as such. Seek out books that are appropriate for your child’s reading level, and that they find funny or interesting. And please, pretend you find them fun and interesting too!
• Although reading should be satisfying in itself, if it seems necessary, set out a reward for your child (and for yourself) if you can complete a certain streak of reading, reading a whole book, etc.
• If you’re reading together, it’s okay to take turns with the reading to make it more fluent and digestible. Probably better to match the times of the reading rather than the number of pages: they read 5 minutes then you read 5 minutes.
• Chat about the books you read. Discuss your opinions, the characters and situations. What would they do/you do? Extend the story to your personal life. 

Feel free to share your thoughts or ask questions in the comment section.