Teachers who work with English as a Second Language learners will find ESL/ESOL/ELL/EFL reading/writing skill-building children's books, stories, activities, ideas, strategies to help PreK-3, 4-8, and 9-12 students learn to read.
Reading At Home
Frequent questions
Expert answers
I am raising my children to be bilingual. What can I do to make them strong readers?
As a parent, you play a critical role in helping your children develop into good readers! You may already be taking the most important first steps by exposing them to books and by reading books with them. By keeping books within easy reach (such as in a basket on the floor), they can explore them when interested. If you don’t already do so, you may want to consider making a quiet time with books part of your children's daily routine. For example, you can read stories together right before naps or bedtime or after a bath. If reading stories becomes a consistent part of their daily routine, they will most likely come to expect, enjoy, and be calmed by this relaxing and intimate time that you share.
The following articles will give you ideas on ways to promote literacy and to share the joy of reading together:
- Helping Your Child Become a Reader
- Simple Ways to Encourage Learning
- The Early Years Are Learning Years
- Reading with Your Child
- Tips for Sharing Books
- Making Music: Literacy Tips for Parents
By giving your children positive experiences with books, you are instilling in them a genuine, lifelong passion for reading and learning — a priceless gift! Please use the following link to find numerous resources about English Language learners. Many of these articles address the concerns of teaching bilingual students in all the academic areas.
What can I do now to make sure that my two year old will learn how to read?
As a parent, you play a critical role in helping your child develop into a reader! The Reading Rockets website is all about reading. The following articles will give you ideas of ways to promote literacy and to share the joy of reading together:
- Helping Your Child Become a Reader
- Simple Ways to Encourage Learning
- The Early Years Are Learning Years
- Reading With Your Child
- Tips for Sharing Books
- Making Music: Literacy Tips for Parents
Reading books should be a fun and enjoyable activity for both of you. Most importantly, by giving your child positive experiences with books, you are instilling in him a genuine, lifelong passion for reading and learning—a priceless gift!
How can I help my preschooler with her writing skills?
The following articles will give you an idea of the types of skills that very young children should be demonstrating:
Incorporating reading and writing into everyday fun activities, such as reading a recipe and baking together, writing a grocery list, and sending notes to each other, is one of the best ways parents can help develop pre-literacy skills in their very young children. Allow your preschooler to scribble letters without correction, use letter magnets and stamps, and take dictation while she tells you her ideas. In this way, she will discover the joy, power, and practicality of literacy and will be inspired to learn more as she is ready.
The following articles may give you ideas of ways to encourage your child’s writing skills in playful, fun, and developmentally appropriate ways:
- Tips for Parents to Encourage Writing
- Writing Leads to Reading
- 25 Activities for Reading and Writing Fun
- Written Language: Practical Ideas for Parents
- The Early Years Are Learning Years
- Fun Reading Tips and Activities
One of the most valuable gifts that you can give your child is to instill in her a love of reading and writing and a genuine curiosity and desire to learn. She will take this gift with her throughout her lifetime.
I would like to start teaching my 9-month old how to read, but he usually plays with books rather than reading them. How can I help him become a reader?
It is great that you want to help your child become a good reader! There are lots of ways to support these skills at every stage of his development.
At his age, he will probably not be holding books and noticing printed words. He is at a tactile stage, which means he will want to touch everything and explore his environment by putting objects in his mouth, throwing them, and otherwise conducting little experiments on his physical environment. This is normal and necessary for his development! (That's why board books are great for infants and toddlers.)
The way he will learn the proper way to use books is by watching you read and having early exposure to books. Keep reading with him, even if he doesn't really understand it, but don't force him to sit still or turn pages gracefully! He will begin to do this as he gets older.
What are some ways to help my daughter learn the names and sounds of letters? She is tired of simply using flashcards.
There are several things you can do to help your child remain interested in learning her letters. Try using a multi-sensory approach. Your child may be a tactile learner instead of an auditory or visual learner, or she may just need a variety of sensory input to learn best. Help her to identify how each sound feels on her mouth. Use a mirror to help. For example your lips come together for /m/.
You may want to try coming up with a rhyme or song about each letter. Use alphabet magnets or alphabet cookie cutters with clay in lieu of flash cards. These activities may be more fun and engaging than flashcards and help your daughter develop her oral communication.
Use pictures. Give your child a picture (e.g. a cat) and have her sound out the name while placing marbles, drawing marks, or tapping her fingers for each of the individual sounds in the word (e.g., /c/.../a/.../t/ is composed of 3 sounds, thus the child would use 3 marbles, marks, or taps.) Stick with short words with a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern, like bat, top, pen, dad, etc. You can also clap or tap out the number of syllables in a word.
My second grader is having a hard time focusing on one word at a time when reading. What can I do to help her?
Beginning readers need lots of practice reading – it takes time, practice, time, and more practice! Work with your daughter's teacher to learn exactly at what level she is reading. Then, go to the library and load up on books written at that level AND below. Provide her with time each day to read, reread, and reread again those below reading level books. You'll want to build up her confidence and fluency with those books. Then, support her reading by reading WITH her the books at her instructional level. Prompt her to sound out words that can be sounded out (and just tell her the ones that can't or are too tricky). Praise her efforts and reread each book multiple times over the course of a week or two. Finally, get some terrific children's literature written ABOVE her reading level. Read those books to her to remind her WHY reading is so great. Model lots of good expression and let her hear what good, fluent reading sounds like.
Do everything you can to provide a fun climate for reading. If a book is too hard, put it away. Reinforce her efforts and continue to work closely with your school and teachers. If she continues to struggle, talk with them about additional testing and some one-on-one supervised tutoring.
How can I help my son develop his reading comprehension abilities?
We have a lot of information on our site about teaching comprehension skills and how parents can help at home. The following links can help you get started on helping your son develop his skills.
If you have concerns, you may wish to discuss these with his teacher. The teacher may have strategies that work in the classroom that s/he can pass on to you. Together, you can determine the best course of action for helping your son.
My daughter is reading below grade level. What can I do to help her become a good reader and get to a point where she enjoys reading?
Beginning readers need lots of practice reading – it takes time, practice, time, and more practice! Work with your daughter's teacher to learn exactly at what level she is reading. Then, go to the library and load up on books written at that level and below. Provide her with time each day to read and reread those below reading level books. You'll want to build up her confidence and fluency with those books. Then, support her reading by reading her the books at her instructional level. Prompt her to sound out words that can be sounded out (and just tell her the ones that can't or are too tricky). Praise her efforts and reread each book multiple times over the course of a week or two. Finally, get some terrific children's literature written above her reading level. Model lots of good expression and let her hear what good, fluent reading sounds like. Check Reading Rockets' Books & Authors section for some great titles!
Do everything you can to provide a fun climate for reading. If a book is too hard, put it away. Reinforce her efforts and continue to work closely with your school and teachers. If she continues to struggle, talk with them about additional testing and some one-on-one supervised tutoring.
What types of books should I have available for my young reader? Do you have any specific book recommendations?
To keep your child engaged with reading, you should keep a wide variety of books on hand, and make sure to include books on topics that interest him. In your book collection, keep books that your child currently enjoys so he can read them over and over again (repeat readings are great – they help kids feel comfortable with the story and begin "reading" it along with you!). You should also add new books regularly, and make them a little more advanced than his current collection. He will let you know – probably through a lack of interest – when a book is too difficult. Picture books are good because they allow you to point out words and help him begin to recognize letters and their associated sounds. Pictures also give clues to the story for young children who are just grappling with language–learning, but if he can follow the plot of a book without pictures, that's wonderful! The important thing is to go at his pace, but maintain a rich and varied literary environment.
For more information on reading to young children, check the following section of our site:
We also have a great list of recommended books for kids by theme, award winning books, etc. that you can order directly from amazon.com through our site.
My daughter is 6 and is about to enter first grade. However, she has trouble distinguishing letters in both English and Spanish. I would like to help her become a better reader this summer. Which language should I use to help her?
It's great that you are going to help your daughter over the summer! Parent involvement is an important part of a child’s success.
Research shows that learning to read in a first language is easier than learning to read in a second language. Once you learn how to read in your first language, you can transfer those skills to a different language. In her case, if she speaks Spanish at home with you, it may be helpful to focus on building those reading skills in Spanish this summer. When she goes into first grade, she can focus on transferring those skills to English, rather than learning them for the first time.
If she is more comfortable in English, work on those activities in English. Once she gets stronger, you can start practicing letters and words in Spanish. You can also try both languages and see which one is easier for her — after all, you know her best!
Finally, don’t hesitate to expose her to both languages over the summer through different activities and bilingual books, music, games, and movies.
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