Make deliberate mistakes when you read to her

Let me just say that there are an infinite number of reasons why you would want to read to your child. So it really is needless to make that justification here. At the age of 6, your daughter’s reading ability may range from non-existent to an enthusiastic reader. Depending on the school she attends, the curriculum may defer reading for more creative pursuits at this age. But no matter, you child will go to college and she will read at that level and beyond, so it really is immaterial if she can read whole sentences at the age of 6 or 7 or even later.

Before every night, we have our bedtime routine likely no different than yours. Except with us, she reads one story and then I read to her one story. The story she reads to me are from books she borrowed from school or the library. Talk to her teacher about her reading level and consult a reading chart of skills and levels and go from there.  When she reads to me, it gives me a chance to help her with her phonics, pronunciation and tempo. As I always tell her, practice makes perfect and the more she reads, the better she gets. That means she reads the same book over again. Just like she likes to watch the same movie again and again, each subsequent time she reads the same book, she reads it better and she understands more of the content. You should rotate through two or three books that she rereads to you for about two weeks and then get a new batch.

When I read to her, I deliberately make mistakes forcing her to catch my errors. The first thing that happens is a look of confusion and then an immediate attempt to correct me. She will look for my spoken words on the page and realize they aren’t there. This type of reading changes the game and accelerates the development of word recognition and logic.

When I read to her, I use a different set of books and I deliberately make mistakes forcing her to catch my errors. Rather than reading something like, “The hungry bear hurried down the hill to catch the salmon swimming upstream”, I would substitute words and come up with a new sentence, “The hungry bear flew down the hill to catch the dolphins swimming upstream.” The first thing that happens is a look of confusion and then an immediate attempt to correct me. She will look for my spoken words on the page and realize they aren’t there. She would also point out that the word is “salmon” and not “dolphins”, for example. She would also highlight that bears don’t fly. This type of reading changes the game and accelerates the development of word recognition and logic. It also fires up the imagination – hers and yours.

I must admit that I don’t read as much as I did before I became a dad. But it is good to resume that habit. I carve out a good 15-20 minutes a day of quiet reading time and I encourage my daughter to do the same on the couch next to me. She can read comic books, picture books, word books or any sort of books she wants. Teach by example and learn by doing.