Reading and homework. I hope your home is filled with books. Picture books, nonfiction books, novels, silly books, all kinds of books. If you don’t value learning and curiosity, your child won’t. Become the audience for your child’s oral reading while you cook dinner or wash dishes and talk about books. Rather than asking the child to summarize the reading, ask what the character might do next, why the author might have made a setting or plot choice, or how your child is like the main character. These types of questions force the child to do critical thinking which is much more complex than summarizing.
Another activity that can happen as you cook dinner is homework. Create a space and time for regular homework completion. Homework left for 9 p.m. is seldom a child’s best effort. See that it is finished early in an area free from distractions so that children get to bed at a reasonable hour.
Happy Reading!