Storytime Tips For Parents

Plant the seed and your child will grow to love to read!

Follow these tips to make reading time a special time for you and your child, and inspire an early love of reading!

Storytime Tips

It's okay to stop a story midway through if your kids get bored. If their a bit antsy, act out parts of the story or make up a song about it.
Ham it up! Use sound effects and funny voices when you read out loud to show kids that reading is F-U-N!
Pick interactive books that have kids lift, slide, and pull tabs. It'll help them focus on the story and build fine-motor skills, too!
Ask kids lots of questions while reading together. They'll love chatting about favorite parts, funny characters, and what may happen next.
Ask kids to pick out letters on the page or -for older kids- pick out words.
Move your fingers under the words on the page as you read. This will help to draw kids' attention to the words, and to reinforce the fact that you're reading.
If you're reading a rhyming book, read the first part of the rhyme out loud, then ask your kids to guess the rhyming word.
Point to a word on the page and the picture for that word to help kids understand that the word stands for the picture.
If kids aren't ready to read on their own, read a line aloud and have them repeat. Don't forget to mention how great of a job their doing! This will build confidence in emerging readers.
Make introducing new words to young readers exciting. Point out words that your kids may be unfamiliar with and read them aloud. Ask kids what they think the words mean. You'll get some interesting answers that you can explore. Then, hint at what the words actually mean and help them guess!
"Again! Again!" If kids want an encore of their favorite story, give it to them. Soon they'll commit the words in the story to memory; and when they read new books they'll be able to identify words they've learned from their favorite book.
Read every day and begin each reading session by announcing that its "STORYTIME!" Kids will start to look forward to this quality time that you've devoted to them.

When kids get a little older you can still hold on to the tradition of storytime. Take trips to the library and help them pick out books, then let them read the books aloud to you. They'll love showing off their superb reading skills that you helped them develop!

storytime tips for parents

Storytime Tips

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