Reading Strategies

Ways to promote your child’s literacy development every day:

• Let your child see you read and write.
• Read to and with your child everyday.
• Use the library. (Check current in-person and virtual services at Arlington Public Libraries)
• Try a storytime at your library, local book store, or online.
• Tell stories or act them out
• Give books as gift
• Keep a family library of books in your home. Add new books to it whenever you can.
• Make books available for reading on the go: in the car, on the bus, in the travel bag, wherever you are!

Ways to talk about books that promote critical and creative thinking and literacy development:

• Look at the cover and discuss what the book might be about.
• Talk with your child about the kinds of books they enjoy reading the most and why.
• Compare and contrast the setting and characters between two books.
• Discuss how the illustrations supported the ideas in the book.
• Stop and chat about interesting and important facts or ideas when you are reading with them.
• Ask your child if a book reminded them of something they have done or seen or read.
• Consider if the story could really happen. Explore with them why or why not.
• Invite your child to share something they learned after reading.
• Have your child share their favorite part of the book.
• Discuss why the author wrote the book.
• Ask if this book would make a good movie, who would be the best actors to play the characters, and why.
• Explore other ways the story might have ended.
• Ask your child who else they think might enjoy this book.
• Inquire about what your child would like to read next!