You keep hearing that you need to encourage your child to read more, but it is difficult because they have dyslexia and hate reading. Anyway, you’re not really sure why this is so important. Here are my top 5 reasons why you must ensure your child reads more, preferably on a daily basis.
- Your child will increase the range and breadth of their vocabulary.
According to research, a dyslexic child’s vocabulary will develop fast through reading – the statistics are that a struggling student who reads for 7 minutes daily will add up to 21,000 words to their vocabulary over a year; if they read for longer then they will add more than 1,000,000 words per year (reading for 20 minutes and over). Think how many words your child could add to their vocabulary by reading daily for 10 – 20 minutes each day.
A lot of children with dyslexia suffer from only having simple vocabulary at their fingertips because they don’t read. This will prevent them from understanding harder texts and concepts at secondary school as you need to know about 98% of the vocabulary to make sense of what you read. At worst, your child will find it difficult to pass their exams.
- Your child will increase their background knowledge on a wide range of subjects.
Your child needs knowledge about a variety of subjects to help them understand texts that they read at school. When your child learns, they will recall anything that they already know about that subject. If they have been reading a diverse range of books over their school years then they will have this knowledge. Without it, they will really struggle, especially as texts and concepts become harder at Secondary School and beyond.
Reading will, therefore, actually increase your child’s performance at school.
- The more your child practices reading, the better they will become at it.
Just like everything else – good musicians practice daily, good footballers practice their skills and so on. Your child will get better at reading if they keep reading. To make reading a daily habit for your child make sure they have a book which they have chosen because they are more likely to want to read it; schedule in a time for reading which either follows or comes before an event in your daily routine, for example read for 10 minutes after dinner or 10 minutes before going to bed. By linking it with an event, rather than at an actual time of day, the daily habit is more likely to be established because the event always happens but you may be out at an allocated time slot.
- Reading improves concentration.
Does your child get easily distracted? This is a common occurrence for those with dyslexia as they have a weak working memory. Working memory is the area of the brain thought to help us control our behaviour; including helping us focus on the task at hand. Reading is a task which requires concentration – more reading will lead to better concentration. If this is difficult for your child, then start noting down how long your child can concentrate for at the moment. Start your child off reading for this amount of time, which may be as little as a minute. Then gradually extend out the time, adding 30 seconds or a minute at a time once your child is comfortable at each new extended time. I have used this technique to great effect with children who had great difficulty concentrating.
- Your child is missing out on a rich world.
Your child can travel around the world, experience sights from all corners of the globe, find out interesting and weird facts and get lost in their own imaginations, all from reading a book sitting in a room at home! You simply can’t allow them to miss out on this amazing experience.
Whilst they are struggling with this skill, you will need to help your child find ways to make it enjoyable so that it is not just a slow and painful exercise. Has your child tried audible books which helped Princess Beatrice when she was a struggling reader ? You could also try reading together with your child, perhaps you read two pages of a book and they read one (use a different voice for each character to make it extra fun or use puppets to act it out); or they read but you just supply the words they struggle with; this will keep up the momentum of the story and make it more enjoyable. Finally, your child may prefer technology to give a helping hand such as pens which scan and read text or using the text reading software on your computer.
You now have the reasons to get your child reading more and ideas on how to make it a lot more enjoyable for them. Never give up, reading is a fantastic skill which has many knock on benefits such as raising self-esteem.
If you are struggling to establish a daily reading habit and you would like more guidance, please do contact me at www.dyslexiadeb.co.uk.
Debbie Abraham Specialist Dyslexia Tutor and Owner of Dyslexia Deb.
2 readers had their say
Great article!
Thank you. I’m glad you found it useful.