Knowing your child’s reading stage and how to help them

By Ryan Spencer, Dymocks Literacy Expert &
State Director of the Australian Literacy Educator’s Association

Learning to read is a complicated process and parents often wonder if their child’s reading abilities are advancing at the rate they “should”. It’s tempting to compare children of the same age in terms of their reading development, however, this is in no way a reliable indicator of how they should be reading at a certain age.

Rather than judging progression by age, it’s important to think about learning to read as occurring in three stages.

Stage 1: Emerging readers

How to spot them

Children in the emergent stage of reading are usually just starting to gain an understanding of how a text works. They will display good book handling behaviours, they will know where the book begins and ends, and they understand that text and pictures convey a message. Generally, readers in this stage can recognise a small number of high-frequency words (5-20 words) that occur regularly throughout a text.

How to help

When your child is displaying these reading behaviours, you can assist their development by pointing out environmental print in their everyday surroundings. This includes words on signs, around the home and at the supermarket. It’s also great to talk about the meaning of the story when reading favourite books at bedtime and making link between these stories and your child’s own experiences.

Stage 2: Beginning readers

How to spot them

In this stage, children are becoming much more familiar with different texts and usually start to read much more widely and independently. You may notice your child can identify many more high-frequency words (20-50 words) and they also begin to self-correct words as they are reading. While children may sometimes read slowly and word by word at this stage, they are still gaining valuable information from the text.

How to help

Parents who engage with their child at this stage of reading are assisting them best when they allow their discussions about the book to go a little deeper. Perhaps discuss what could happen next after the book is finished or explore different texts that the author has written.

Stage 3: Fluent readers

How to spot them

Fluent readers are those who can identify most high-frequency words automatically. They tend to read from a wide range of different texts with little or no assistance. Readers at the fluent stage tend to use a range of different strategies to figure out unknown words, including skipping the word and allowing the wider context to convey the message, reading on for more information, and substituting the word with a word that would also make sense.

How to help

When you are reading with a fluent reader, it is useful to begin discussions about different types of texts, their purposes and the characteristics of how these texts are made up. For instance, when looking at graphic novels, you could talk about how the author uses images to represent different aspects of the story and the impact that text placement has on how this is displayed.

Tips for parents on making learning to read fun for children

Relax

The simplest way to encourage children to engage in reading is to relax around the process. The physical location can make a real difference to how the reading is perceived and enjoyed. Try lying down on the lounge room floor, mum and dad’s bed, or outside under a tree.

Let your children choose what they want to read

Book choice is a vital component of the reading process. As adults, we very rarely read anything that we either don’t love or enjoy. Why then do we insist that children must read cover to cover something that they don’t necessarily enjoy or like? Often these imposed choices on children come from a place of love – we are trying to support the children in accessing a text that is at their reading level. It is often hard to let go and let children choose their own books. This is vital, however, for developing strong, self-sufficient readers.

Don’t be the ‘instant word factory’

When you are reading with your child and they come to a word they don’t know, don’t just supply the word that they are unsure of. Rather, encourage your child to skip the word and read on for more information, use the pictures for a clue, even leave the word behind and continue reading. By refocusing the child’s attention back to the meaning of the text, the context of the text will help fill in the blanks.

Can’t wait to start reading with your little ones?
Choose from a wide selection of children’s books from Dymocks.