Reading together 10 minutes a day at home: a simple routine

Why ten minutes

Ten minutes is a practical size, not a research threshold: short enough to stay pleasant, regular enough to turn into a habit. The U.S. Institute of Education Sciences practice guide for kindergarten through third grade recommends that each child reads connected text every day, starting as soon as they can identify a few words. The National Reading Panel advised teachers to include guided oral reading practice in their regular routines during the elementary grades, and certainly with struggling readers.

So the aim is to read often and keep it light. A missed day is not a failure. Pick the routine up again the next day.

The routine in four steps

Step one: choose a short text your child can mostly read on their own. Step two: your child reads it aloud and you listen, without jumping in at every slip. Step three: you pick out one or two words that caused trouble and work through them sound by sound. Step four: your child reads the whole text again.

This is more than listening. A meta-analysis of 16 intervention studies with 1,340 families found that when parents tutored their children with specific literacy activities, the effects were larger than when parents only listened to their children read. The routine builds in activities of that kind: working on a few words and rereading. The IES guide notes that in repeated reading, children are less likely to guess at unknown words and keep meeting the same words, which should help them recognize those words more efficiently.

When your child gets stuck, there is a simple order to follow. The Education Endowment Foundation in England suggests "pause, prompt, praise": wait a moment so your child can work the word out, give a clue rather than the answer, and praise the effort when they concentrate and problem-solve. The IES guide adds two details. If your child cannot correct the mistake, read the sentence back exactly as they said it and ask "Did that make sense?" And if a word cannot be sounded out, such as the irregular words "of" and "was", simply tell them the word and have them repeat it.

Choosing the right text

The right text is one your child can read with help without being overwhelmed. The IES guide describes an instructional-level text as one where the child misses no more than about one word in ten, and says practice with a parent, teacher or other more proficient reader can use texts like that. It warns against asking a child to read frustration-level text without feedback, because that can lead them to practice ineffective word-reading strategies. For reading alone, the guide says the text should be at the child's independent level, which means an easier one. Let the sounds taught at school guide your choice (see the guide on how sounds are sequenced) and keep a few texts your child can succeed with.

The guide suggests practice texts that feature recently taught sound-spelling patterns, which is the idea behind decodable texts. Your child's teacher can tell you which patterns the class is working on and which books fit. For more on rereading, see the guide on reading fluency.

When, where and how

Choose a fixed time that suits your family, for instance after a snack or before school. If your child is worn out by the end of the day, a different slot may go better. Turn off screens, sit beside your child and let them hold the text. If ten minutes goes by too fast or drags, adjust: what matters is a rhythm your child can live with.

You do not need teacher training. The National Reading Panel noted that guided oral reading procedures are not particularly difficult to use and do not require lots of special equipment or materials. The EEF also acknowledges that some parents feel anxious about reading to their children, particularly if they struggle with their own literacy skills. A book and a chair are enough to start.

If your child refuses to read

A refusal can come from a text that is too hard or a session that goes on too long. Shorten it, pick something easier, or take turns: the IES guide lists alternated reading, where child and adult read continuous sections in turn, as one way to practice. If the refusal continues, do not force it. Read your child a story instead and try again the next day.

If refusing comes with tears, great tiredness or a fear of getting things wrong, talk to your child's teacher. If the worry persists, your child's doctor or a qualified specialist can help. For more, read my child can't read: what can I do?

What about the bedtime story?

It keeps its place, separate from this routine. In these ten minutes, your child does the reading. At bedtime, you read, and that feeds your child's language and love of stories, as the guide on reading science explains. The EEF places shared reading at the center of work with parents on early language and literacy.

The two do different jobs. In the meta-analysis above, the three studies in which parents read to their children showed no significant reading gains. Bedtime stories do other work, so keep them, and add a short turn where your child reads.