Developing Readers

One of my fondest memories of training to be a teacher, was when our course coordinator Patricia would demonstrate teaching a P.E. lesson to a class of children who she would endearingly called gymnasts or athletes.  I watched her closely as she gave instructions to mount a beam or throw a ball, and I thought about how to transfer my learning into a laboratory when teaching Science or a classroom when teaching English.  I soon adopted the habit of positively labelling students according to their potential.  So I called them scientists during Science lessons, authors during English lessons and accountants during Maths lessons. 

Developing a reader identity in your child works in a similar way. If you have a high expectation of your child's reading ability, then it will show up in your comments, your book choices for them and in how you discuss what they've read with them. Here are some useful questions that you can ask your child after they've finished reading a book:

1. What was the main setting?

2. Who was the main antagonist?

3. What was your favourite language technique?

4. What do you like about the language technique?

5. Why do you think the author/poet used those words in that way?

The skills that you will help to develop in your child when you discuss topics in this way, will help them greatly with their education, but even more importantly, it will help them to develop into young adults with the ability to share their ideas intellectually.

💜

Dr. Monica is available to meet the training or consultancy needs of your family or learning organisation. Contact her at vineacademy2024@gmail.com.

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