Parent-child reading: make good use of the 5 routines
Parent-child reading brings many benefits to children. Children with more exposure to parent-child reading at an early age generally will have a better development in cognitive skills in terms of language and literacy, numeracy and memory. Parent-child reading can also bring better parent-child relationship and positive social development of the children.
Common reading intervention approaches for parent-child reading include dialogic reading, interactive shared book reading and shared book reading. Among these three approaches, the degree of child's active participation is probably the highest in dialogic reading. During dialogic reading, parents can use different prompts to help their children respond to the story-telling. Parents may also switch roles with their children and guide them to learn to become the storyteller.
Parents can adopt the “5 routines” to practise parent-child reading:
Acquiring Books
Parents can visit libraries and book stores with their children frequently. Parent can let their children have the opportunities to choose books while observing how they choose and store the books.
Cultivating Reading Habit at Home
Parents should be the role model and read frequently, and arrange a reading session of 10-30 minutes everyday to read with their children quietly.
Reading with Children
Parents can enjoy the happiness of reading with their children. During parent-child reading, parents should conduct activities according to the children’s abilities and interests and adopt dialogic reading frequently.
Attending to the Environment
Parents can pay attention to the surroundings with their children and see if there is anything of interest that is related to the books recently read. Parents can also read different things they encounter in daily life with their children.
Being Appreciative and Having Fun
Parents can enjoy reading with their children with appreciation and fun, and let reading give you happiness.
The above content is extracted from Curriculum Framework on Parent Education (Kindergarten) examplar. For details of EDB Curriculum Framework on Parent Education (Kindergarten), please visit the EDB Smart Parent Net webpage (www.parent.edu.hk/en/article/framework_kg).