Do you remember learning to play your favorite sport? Better yet, have you ever seen a kindergarten soccer game? It's a mess, right? There are kids running all over the field, they don't pay any attention to the rules, the kick the ball in whatever direction the happen to be facing... You're lucky if they all stay on the field instead of wandering away! Flash forward ten years and think about a high school soccer game. It's a totally different game. There's a chance you might not even recognize them as the same thing. What's the difference? Practice. More practice. Then some practice after that. Then a little more practice. Years and years and years of hard work and practice is what takes the normal kindergartner to a high school athlete, or even more, to a professional athlete.
Reading is the same way. Parents often ask me the best way to make their kids better readers. There are TONS of ways to make kids better readers. The BEST way to make kids better readers though, is to practice. Practice by themselves, practice with siblings or friends, practice with parents, practice with grandparents... Reading silently, partner reading, choral reading, being read to... Easy books by themselves, hard books being read to them and discussed, on level books. To get kid to read, it can't be a hard, hard thing to do. Things are most enjoyable when we do them well. The only way to get better is t practice.
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