Teaching your child to read is half the battle; teaching your child to understand the meaning and the music behind the words she reads is the other half, and it can be a hard fight to win.
Mosaic of Thought is a book intended for teachers, with suggestions for class-size interventions.
It's interesting and worthwhile reading for parents looking to understand the latest reading research, but if you want to get started right away with teaching your child better comprehension, flip through the pages and look for the short subtitled sections at the end of most chapters. These will provide you with:
- Habits of proficient readers that you can encourage in your child
- Key ideas that you can keep in mind while reading with your child
- Strategies for classroom use that you can scale down to your reading time together
Set up a time every day for you and your child to read together -- with either you reading aloud to your child, or you and your child alternating pages read aloud. Use the information from
Mosaic of Thought to elicit responses from your child and help her make deeper connections to the text. The questions in Appendix Four can give you some ideas on what to ask your child as you read together, and how to assess her level of response. Keep your reading routine going every day, during vacations and during the school year, and you should see improvement in your child's ability to read, remember, and enjoy books. She'll also be in good practice for the kind of questions and exercises being used in reading classrooms on the basis of this same research.
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