Goofing On Purpose
As your child is beginning to decode
words on the page, and reading aloud independently in the early stages, the
process is exciting enough as it is. Give your child a lot of encouragement and
don't be too picky about mistakes in pronunciation. Remember the 80/20 rule:
give 80% praise and 20% correction, and you'll keep the tone light and the
learning fun.
But as reading mastery begins to set
in, in first or second grade and beyond, and your child is making fewer and
fewer decoding errors, you need to find ways to help your child strive for the
utmost accuracy in reading. That's the best route to excellence in
comprehension.
Here's a fun but simple way to help
your child become a critical, analytical reader who is a careful listener, can
spot errors, and loves to get things right:
Goof, on purpose.
Snuggle up with your child so that
you both can see the book. Now you read aloud, at a moderate pace. After a few
paragraphs, deliberately insert a word in a key place that shouldn't be there.
Make it extremely obvious. Accentuate the mistake verbally for humorous
exaggeration.
You know: instead of reading, "Sally
sat on the cushion," say, "Sally sat on the cucumber."
At first, your child might be
shocked. But then, he or she will catch on to the game. It's good for children
to see that adults can make mistakes and laugh about it. It's relaxing and
encouraging, instead of making them feel like they're "working" or under a
microscope when they're reading with you.
Substitute the child's own name for
a given name in a story, greatly exaggerate a number, or Children usually start
shouting out the correct word, and then laughing like crazy at their parent's
goofy mistake.
Read on for a few more paragraphs,
and then goof again. Instead of "They all went for a ride in the car," say,
"They all went for a ride in the magic pumpkin."
Your child will laugh again, insert
the proper word, and by then, may want to follow the text with his or her
finger in order to "catch" your next error just as you say it.
It may sound crazy . . . but ending
up with a child who's a good reader makes you crazy like a fox.
By Susan Darst Williams • www.GoBigEd.com • Read to Me 017 • © 2006
