Supporting your child’s reading and writing at home
Reading 101: A Guide for Parents
Welcome, parents! One of the most important gifts we can give our children is to help them learn to read and write so that they can succeed in school and beyond. Confident, active readers are able to use their reading skills to follow their passions and curiosity about the world. We all read for a purpose: to be entertained, to take a journey of the imagination, to connect with others, to figure out how to do something, and to learn about history, science, the arts, and everything else.
Learning to read is complex. Children don't learn one reading-related skill and then move on to the next in a step-by-step process. Instead, they are learning to do many things at the same time: decoding, reading with comfortable fluency, absorbing new vocabulary, understanding what the text says, and discovering that reading is pleasurable and builds knowledge about the world.
We hope this guide will give you a better understanding of what it takes to learn to read (and write) and how you can help your children grow as readers, writers, and learners!
Visit the Reading Basics section to learn more about the building blocks of reading

Writing
From handwriting to personal stories to persuasive writing to explaining how to do something, discover ways to encourage your child to write every day. Developing good writing skills strengthens vocabulary, comprehension, and spelling skills. Visit the Writing Basics section to learn more.
"The primary goals of writing are to communicate, to persuade, to inform, to learn, to reflect about yourself, and also to entertain others. What really makes writing motivating for young children is sharing it and being successful with it."
— Steve Graham, Arizona State University