Setting Reading and Writing Routines at Home

Once a month, parents of our preschool students come to the classroom a few minutes early at the end of the day to be a part of PACT: Parent And Child Together time. During this time, students get to share an aspect of what we’re working on in school with their parents and bridge the divide between school time and home time. Last month, we read picture books together during PACT time. Parents and kids took turns “reading” the pictures to each other using story-telling voices and holding the book between them. It was incredible to see our 4 year olds take ownership over reading a story to their parents, and to see our parents so invested in this reading time with their child.
What are your reading and writing routines like at home with your student? How do you communicate to each other the importance of reading and writing?
One way to establish these routines at home is to choose one thing that you both do together at the same time of day. This could be:

• Reading a bedtime story at night
• Reading the newspaper headlines in the morning
• Writing a note back and forth about how your day went after school and work

Or, you might choose to pick a ritual that you do together that can happen any time:

• Writing the grocery list together and finding each item at the store
• Making messages out of magnetic letters or words on the fridge
• Reading road signs and advertisements while driving or taking the bus

No matter what your routines are, your child will be far more likely to read and write at home when there is structure and support for reading and writing to be something fun that parents and children can do together.