As an elementary school teacher, I am asked the same question year after year. How can I help my child with his reading? It’s something of a struggle for many parents, but there are some simple things you can do at home to help your little one improve.

Nothing replaces the practice of reading every day at home. If you don’t already, it’s not too late. You simply cannot leave it to the classroom teacher to get your child to read. It’s a skill that is truly best learned at home, snuggled up together with a book and plenty of time. I know you have heard it before, but make it part of your everyday routine. It will easily become something your child looks forward to if you make it a special time for the two of you together.

As you read together, discuss the storyline, pictures, characters. Predict what you think will happen next. Talk about any prior knowledge you have that relates to the story. Retell the story, including the beginning, middle, and end.

Make frequent library visits, but rather than checking out twenty books at a time, let your child pore over the shelves to pick out just a couple of books, perhaps one fiction and one nonfiction. Short chapter books are great to read aloud together, with you and your child taking turns. Check out series books too. If your child seems to be checking out the same book over and over again, that’s ok! You may want to go ahead and buy that one from a bookstore, but reading a book time and time again is really fine. It’s not holding him back, it just means he really likes that one!

Get a reading list from your school or library. Libraries generally keep lists for all the surrounding schools, and you can make a copy for your own use. You don’t have to adhere strictly to it, but it will help give you an idea of your child’s reading level. There will probably be some books on the list that you’ve never heard of, but give them a try! Let your child scan the list to see what seems interesting to her.

Reading aloud gives you a chance to see how accurate your child’s reading is. Reading together affords you an opportunity to discuss the book together, which will let you know how much your child is actually comprehending. From there you can determine if your child needs easier or slightly harder books to read. If you’re not sure, err on the side of easy to get started. First and second graders (and older children too!) still like picture books, and why not! They’re fun, colorful, short, and easy to read.

Cater to your child’s interests. Find joke books, poems, humorous books, mysteries, or even thrillers if that’s what your child likes. Don’t make him read about dinosaurs if he has no interest. His teacher may make him read things outside of his interest, but you don’t have to.

Take note of the different parts of the book. Point out the title, author, title page, and table of contents if there is one. Use the table of contents to find the page you need. If it’s a non-fiction book, it may have an index or glossary at the back. Take note of the page numbers, and use them to find your place. Then in school, when your child’s teacher says, “turn to page 15,” your child will know how to do it.

Notice where a sentence begins and ends. Picture books are great for having just one sentence on a page, and you can notice how a sentence is written with a capital at the beginning and a period at the end. When you read aloud together, practice taking a short pause at the end of each sentence. (Some children tend to run all of the sentences together when reading aloud.)

This is also a good time to take note of how paragraphs begin with an indent. I’ll never forget being in 3rd grade and having my teacher ask me to “read the next paragraph.” I knew where to start, but had no idea where to end. I paused after each sentence and looked at my teacher to ask if I should stop there. Later my mom showed me what a paragraph was. It’s a simple thing, but nobody had ever shown me that before!

When your child comes to an unknown word, don’t jump in to read it for him. Let him have a few seconds to try to sound it out. This is called giving him wait time. Be respectful of your child’s ability to figure it out! If, after a few seconds, he truly cannot decode it, give him clues. Help him learn to sound it out by looking at each individual letter and making the letter sound. If every word in the book is a puzzle, however, the book is probably too hard for him and will cause too much frustration. In that case, you should become the reader and let your child just listen and follow along. You can pick an easier book next time.

Practice looking up information. Let your child help you look up a word in the dictionary, a phone number in the telephone book, a reference in an index, or a listing in an encyclopedia. Notice how things are listed in alphabetical order. Take note of the helpful headings at the top of the page.

Make lists. Write out your grocery list and let her read it out to you in the store. Better yet, let her sit at the kitchen table beforehand and write out the grocery list too. Take the time to help her spell the words she doesn’t know, or give her recipe cards from which she can copy the correct spelling.

Write. Writing is closely linked to reading, and it should be practiced at home. One great way to encourage writing is to help your child keep a diary of daily events. Eventually he may want his diary to be private, but at first help him out by giving him ideas of what to write. Don’t discourage him by becoming critical of spelling or grammatical errors in his diary, however. It belongs to him and he should have the freedom to write or draw in it as he pleases. DO encourage him to ask you if he wants a word spelled out, and do encourage him to write in it every day. If he wants to let you read it, great! I have my own diary from when I was 5 years old. Every page says, “I had fun.” But the important thing is that I distinctly remember sitting down every day to keep my diary up-to-date, and I remember feeling proud of myself for being so diligent about it.

Set a good example by reading yourself. Read whatever interests you, but turn off the TV and spend quiet half hour on the couch reading to yourself. Your child will see you and emulate your behavior.

Finally, look for enjoyment in your reading. If you say to your child, “We’ve got to go read now,” but you roll your eyes and use a tone that really says, “It’s time for your daily punishment,” your child is likely to fight you and balk about it. Use a tone that says you’re excited about spending this time together, learning about new things, enjoying new stories. If you set the right tone, reading together can be a memorable, bond-forming time with your child.