5 Strategies for Motivating Your Struggling Reader

I am always looking for ways to help struggling readers.  Parents are always asking me for advice and I have found some great advice by Ann Lodgson, a school psychologist who specializes in helping parents and teachers help struggling students, offers the following five strategies for motivating reluctant readers with reading activities they will enjoy.  I wholeheartedly agree with these strategies because it could simply take one of them to help your child.  Read the strategies and some suggestions I have included below as well.

1. Pair books with audio books

This is a tried and true method that has been used by teachers for years and I have many myself.  Many libraries have both printed and audio versions of books. Check them out and have your child follow the words in the printed book as the audio book plays. Or, have your child read a chapter, then listen to the chapter on tape.  You can make your own or check out offers from scholastic.com.  If you may even find great downloads from such authors as Robert Munsch.  You can even drag and drop the book images so you can view or listen to them directly on his website.  We can not underestimate how increasing the enjoyment of books, helps struggling readers.

2. Use your television’s closed caption feature

My oldest son does this on his own.  He likes to try to read with the sound of the television and sometimes I find him watching it in Spanish.  It helps increase prosidy which is a fancy term for "style and speed".  The better the prosidy, the more natural the reading sounds.  Turn on closed captioning on your TV or a favorite DVD. Following the captions can help your child improve sight word vocabulary while also helping him or her get a better feel for the way both written and spoken language flows.

3. Create your own books on tape

Research shows that kids’ reading skills improve when they listen to themselves read. Have your child read a book into a voice recorder and then listen to the recording. Kids can record stories and listen to their recordings in several of Imagine Learning English’s activities.  As mentioned above this is a great way to motivate children to read but it is important to know that repeated readings increase a childs fluency and comprehension.

4. Read together as a family

Set aside a half hour every evening just for family reading. Family members can read individually and then talk about what they read, or they can take turns reading to each other from the same book.  Again, doing this is an excellent source for motivation and because you can discuss the material being read, it also helps increase your child's comprehension.

5. Adapt reading materials to your child’s reading level

If your child struggles to read the materials required to learn subject matter at school, read the material yourself and help your child with the meaning and pronunciation of new words. Demonstrate how to look up new words and help your reader through difficult passages. If your child has a disability, check with your school district or library for CD versions of textbooks or for text readers that can be used on your home computer.

Investing the time and energy to implement these strategies can help transform your reluctant, struggling reader into a more confident and competent reader—and maybe even an eager one.