Below are links to some wonderful short video clips created for parents by the Literacy Clinic at Northern Illinois University. These videos were designed to give parents some practical strategies to engage and support their children with reading.


What Do You Do if Your Child Gets Stuck?
Be positive when you guide your children in reading. If they get too frustrated, then reading won’t be fun anymore. Start by making sure that the book he or she is reading is appropriate for his or her learning ability. According to www.greatschools.org, applying the five-finger rule is a great way to select stories to read. Have your child read one page, and if he or she cannot read five or more words on that page, the book is likely too difficult. Likewise, if he or she can read it all except one or two words, it may not be challenging enough. When your child comes to words he or she cannot read, another tip is to teach them how to use the story to figure it out. By looking at illustrations, pictures, titles, or graphs on the page, they can often discover the new word. Parents can also ask them what word or idea would make sense in the plot of the story when he or she gets stuck on an unfamiliar word.