Reading Tip for Parents of Middle School Students

 Encourage any type of reading. Cartoons, instructions for games or electronics, sports or fashion magazines. This functional reading can be the key to unlocking a lifetime of reading pleasure.

 Read and discuss newspaper and magazine articles—maybe even subscribe to a magazine of high interest or skills.

 When there is an assigned reading, try to read the same book so that you can have a meaningful discussion about the story. (There are also great summaries and discussion questions online)

 If your child is struggling to complete an assigned reading, try taking turns listening to him/her read, and reading aloud yourself stopping frequently to ask a question or share an idea.

 Provide a good dictionary or bookmark a dictionary website (yourdictionary.com)—he or she may not be willing to ask what a word means, but might be willing to look it up independently.

 Suggest reading a book from which a movie has been made—background knowledge is already present, it can be good motivation and lead to great compare and contrast discussions.

 Suggest starting a series as it can lead to reading three or four books of high interest and familiar patterns. (The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Clique, Fear Street, Matt Christopher’s Sports Stories, The Princess Diaries, 39 Clues, On the Run, The Shadow Children, The Maze Runner)

 Listen to audio books. This allows for kids to hear fluency, tone and expression. If you listen together, you can facilitate meaningful conversation.

 Encourage your child to read for 15-30 minutes each night.  Encourage “engagement” strategies such as underlining, highlighting, developing questions, making predictions, using post-it notes

o Example: During or after reading:

. write two important things that happened while reading on a post-it note

. make a prediction for what will happen when you pick up the book again

. ask a question to set up a purpose for reading next time

. write two things that shocked you during this reading session

. monitor understanding: flag parts that confused you to go over again later

. Write a 3 sentence summary to review before reading next time