• Choose a quiet time for reading to your child, as in before a nap, bedtime, or after dinner.
• Choose a special place for family reading, like a comfortable chair or pillows piled on the floor.
• Let the child select the book for you to read aloud.
• Hold the book so that your child can see the pictures. If possible, also let him or her turn the pages.
• Take time to look at and talk about the pictures. Don’t just read the story: talk about it.
• When your child outgrows picture books, keep reading. Now choose chapter-books.
• Understand the reading begins at home. Children read their environments, so make your home a print rich environment.
• READ! Don’t expect reading to be important to your children if they see that it’s not important to you.
• Invite your child to read to you. If he or she is a pre-reader, he or she will often interpret his own story using illustrations and imagination.
• Make lists, lots of them. Make them for grocery shopping, books to get from the library, chores, and things to take on trips.

Read aloud to your child every day.