In celebration of Valentine’s Day, and to help parents nurture their children’s reading abilities, Sylvan Learning is offering grade-specific tips for reading at home. Operating more than 900 centers throughout North America, Sylvan Learning is the leading provider of tutoring services to children of all ages and skill levels.

“Children who read regularly at home do better in school and become enthusiastic life-long readers,” said Richard Treff of Sylvan Learning Center of Oakley. “By encouraging children to read at home, parents can help their children establish an enduring love of books, transforming reading from a basic skill to a pleasurable activity.”

Sylvan Learning recommends that parents spend at least one hour per week – 10 to 15 minutes per day – reading with their children.

“Reading is an adventure that begins early in a child’s life and should extend beyond the classroom,” Treff added. “Children exhibit certain reading behaviors at a young age and by understanding and nurturing these behaviors, parents can make reading fun and motivate their child to develop a lifelong friendship with books.”

Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten

• Make cookies together. Read the recipe aloud to your children.

• Read directions to your children when completing a project.

• Subscribe to a magazine such as Ladybug, Your Big Backyard or Zoobooks to learn about topics of interest to your children. They’ll be excited to have their own reading materials.

• Read stories aloud and act them out.

Grades one through three

• Subscribe to a magazine such as Spider or Ranger Rick to learn about topics of interest to your children. Make its arrival an event.

• After reading a nonfiction story, ask your children why they think the author wrote the story.

• Help your children create charts and posters about topics of interest.

• Encourage your children to read a variety of texts – non-fiction, plays, stories, comics and magazines.

• Introduce your children to the library and plan special library visits together.

Grades four through eight

• Help your children with the latest experiment in their science textbooks. Talk through each step and discuss what you’re going to do next.

• Pick a different country each week, and challenge your children to learn more about that country by visiting the library or researching it online.

• Research and select books about your children’s interests such as a sport or hobby.

• Read the newspaper with your children. Elicit their opinion about current events.

Grades nine through 12

• Read a variety of directions (recipes, technical instructions, experiments) and determine the usefulness of the instructions to the reader’s life.

• Purchase a set of reference books or software for home use.

• Encourage your children to talk about the latest book they’re reading. Ask them to share their favorite scenes with the rest of the family.

For more tips plus a Valentine’s Day Reading List, visit www.tutoring.sylvanlearning.com, call 925-679-8667 or e-mail sylvanoakley@sbcglobal.net.