Reading Rockets offers a wealth of reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.
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Monthly tips for parents

Growing Readers

Written especially for parents, Growing Readers (formerly Ed Extras) provides monthly tips for raising strong readers and writers. Schools and PTAs can add these preformatted briefs to their parent newsletters. Growing Readers is also a great resource for libraries and community literacy organizations.

Download and print the latest Growing Readers article:

Children and Digital Media: Rethinking Parent Roles

Growing Readers

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We've archived all of our past Growing Readers articles by topic:

Children's books

Sharing Wordless Picture Books

Finding the Right Book for Your Child

The Importance of Reading Widely

Nursery Rhymes: Not Just for Babies!

Finding and Sharing Great Kids' Books

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Community resources

Early literacy development

Tips for Teaching Your Child About Phonemes

Fluency Matters

Simple Yet Powerful Things to Do While Reading Aloud

Building Reading Stamina

Good Night, Sleep Tight: Preschoolers and Sleep

How to Read With a Squiggly Baby (or Toddler!)

Does My Preschooler Have Delayed Development?

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe: Math and Literacy for Preschoolers

Building Your Child's Vocabulary

Handwriting: What's Normal, What's Not

Healthy Hearing

Beginning Readers: Look! I Can Read This!

Emergent Readers: Look! That's My Letter!

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Parent engagement

Children and Digital Media: Rethinking Parent Roles

Flipped Classrooms and Flipped Lessons: What Does It Mean for Parents?

Preparing 21st Century Learners

How to Read a Report Card

Homework Tips for Parents

No More Morning Madness!

When to Call Your Child's Teacher

Choosing a Preschool

Listen and Look at Back-to-School Night

Preparing Your Child for Testing

The Parent-Teacher Conference (Pre-K)

The Parent-Teacher Conference

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Literacy activities for the family

How to Read an E-Book with Your Child

Getting the Most Out of Nonfiction Reading Time

Putting Your Family Calendar to Work

Mission Critical: Reading Together to Build Critical Thinking Skills

Beat the Heat with Your Weather Page

Book Swap for Kids

Environmental Print

Poems at Home

Use a PEER When You Read Aloud

Picture This! Using Mental Imagery While Reading

Playing with Word Sounds: Stretch and Shorten

The Night Before the Museum

Grocery Store Literacy for Preschoolers

Grocery Store Literacy

Developing Writing and Spelling at Home

Reading for Meaning with Your Child

A Fresh Look at Your Home Library

Playing with Words

Creating a Home Library

The Role of Fathers in Their Child's Literacy Development: Pre-K

The Role of Fathers in Their Child's Literacy Development: K-3

Developing Writing and Spelling at Home: Pre-K

Making Reading Relevant: Read, Learn, and Do! (K-3)

Making Reading Relevant: Read, Learn, and Do! (Pre-K)

Talking Counts!

Reading Aloud to Build Comprehension

Writing and Spelling Ideas to Use with Kids

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Seasonal topics

Five Literacy-Based Ways to Celebrate Earth Day with Your Child

Start the New Year Off Right: Resolve to Raise a Reader!

Creating Holiday Learning Traditions

Learning That's Hands-On Holiday Fun (Pre-K)

New Year's Resolution: Help Your Kids Do Great in School

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Summer reading

Struggling readers and learning disabilities

Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, and Vision

Successful Transition to Kindergarten for Learners Who May Be at Risk for Learning Disabilities

Recognizing Reading Problems

Common Signs of Dyslexia

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Science and math activities (STEM)

Science vs. Science Fiction

Think Like an Inventor

Developing Research and Information Literacy

The Vocabulary of Science

How to Read Nonfiction Text

Share What You Discover! Publishing Your Work

Creating Bar Graphs

Making Inferences and Drawing Conclusions

Cause and Effect

Teaching Sequence

Patterns and Categorizing

Recording Observations: Capturing and Sharing Images

Recording Observations: Journals and Field Notes

Measure Up!

Making Predictions

STEM Tools at Home

Steps in the Scientific Process

Outdoor Explorations

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Sign up for Growing Readers

Once you have signed up you will receive an e-mail every month, letting you know that a new article is available. You can then either cut and paste the text of the article from the Word document into your newsletter, or you can print out the already formatted PDF and staple it in with the rest of your newsletter and distribute it to parents.

Enter your e-mail address above and then click on Go. You'll then be taken to our easy-to-use sign-up page.

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Featured Sister Site

AdLit.org: Resources for parents and educators of struggling adolescent readers and writers.

AdLit.org: All about Adolescent Literacy