How much practice reading for a beginning reader?

[tld]

DS is on the verge of starting to read beginning readers. I have the Sonlight readers ad well as the ones for Sing, Spell, Read, and Write that we'll be using to start with. I'm curious how much practice reading them he should be getting each day. How do you measure it? By time spent? Number of books read? Do you have your child read through the books multiple times? Looking for any other tips you might have! :o)

[StartingOver]

When mine are starting with simple readers like Sonlight's K readers, we read 1 book the first day, then repeat the 1st and read the second the next day, then add in a third. After I have three in rotation and add the 4th, I drop the 1st, so we are reading three books a day, each three times. This builds fluency with my little ones very well. As the books get longer, we read about the same amount as the three together, and build from there.

 

Now with 2 of my 5 children, we split up these three books we read daily into 3 separate reading times, with 3 of them we read straight through them. I don't want to over tax them, playing it by ear. With one child, who wasn't ready to move to Sonlights 2 readers, we redid level 1's then moved on.

[sleeplessnights]

I found that quick, short lessons a couple times a day work best. I would have my kids do their phonics lesson in the morning, then read me a short book (or a couple pages in a longer one) before nap, and then read me another during the storytime before bed. The nap time story would be the new one, and the one before bed they could choose one they have already read. We also have 30 minutes of quiet reading time each day for everyone together, and my beginning readers sometimes read quietly and sometimes just look at picture books. This is meant to be a fun, relaxing time.

 

I think the key here is consistency; one book every day is better than five one day and none for the next couple. We even read during school breaks so they don't lose skills.

[duckens]

When dd5 was emerging as a reader, this is the system I used with Bob books and the readers for our phonics program (Saxon).

 

I put a post-it note inside the back cover of each book. On each post-it, I wrote:

 

1) Mom

2) Dad

3) [baby sister's name]

4) Cats

5) Friend (intended as a grandparent, friend of dd5's, friend of mine, etc)

 

Whenever dd read to one of the people on the list, I checked off the name in the back of the book. Each time we had Phonics lesson, I would send her with a book or two to read to her sister or whichever cats she could find. This gave dd5 extra practice without worrying about getting a word wrong. By the time she had read the book 5 times on five different days, she knew the book well.

 

If you think your daughter needs a little extra prompting on the story from one day to the next, read the book to/with her before sending her off to harass the cats.

 

Dd5 received 25c for each book she read to 5 people.

 

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As dd mastered these little readers, we put them in a shoebox by her bed. If we put her to bed, but she didn't feel "tired" (yeah, uh, huh....), we told her that she could read her books to herself.

 

This

1) gave her even more practice with the books

2) kept her in bed after hours, and

3) built the habit of reading to herself before bedtime.

[kiwik]

My ds5.5 goes to school. They read the reader once slowly with the teacher and their group (2 to 6 kids at the same level). Then their year 5 reading buddy comes and they read it to him/her. Then they bring it home to read to me. By then he seems to be reading from memory. The total time would be 20 to 30 mins.