Teachers and parents should work together to ensure that students are strengthening their reading skills and are meeting milestones each year, so they are ready to advance to the next grade. There are multiple ways to support your child’s reading outside of the classroom.

1. Read something every day. Reading just 20 minutes each day can help your child’s reading skills.
2. Choose books of interest to your child to read.
3. Ask your child questions about what they read. Talking about the words in the book
   helps them understand what they are reading.
4. Make sure books are accessible. Your child will be more likely to pick up a book and read if they are out in the open and easy to find.
5. Sing rhyming songs, read rhyming books, and say tongue twisters with your child. This helps them learn new sounds in words.
6. Talk to your child. Use trips to the grocery store, dinnertime chats, and driving in the car as an opportunity to introduce new words and practice their speaking skills.
7. Talk about letters and sounds. Help your child learn the names of the letters and the sounds the letters make.
8. Have your child write. Writing grocery lists, notes, or letters helps children connect spoken words to written words.
9. Take advantage of community resources. Ask your child’s teacher or school librarian for help picking out books. Visit your local library for events and programs like reading clubs.
10. Reading doesn’t end when the school year ends. Help prevent the “summer slide” by reading over the summer months to better prepare your child for the next school year. The Nebraska Department of Education offers a Summer Reading Challenge program free to all Nebraska students.

The Nebraska Reading Improvement Act requires that parents or guardians be notified of a reading deficiency within 15 working days of the identification, “…and that an individual reading improvement plan will be established and shared with the parents or guardians.”

For more information about IRIPs, please visit https://www.education.ne.gov/nebraskareads/irip-guidance-document/.

The Nebraska Reading Improvement Act states: The reading improvement plan may be created by the teacher, the principal, other pertinent school personnel, and the parents or guardians of the student and shall describe the reading intervention services the student will receive…

While the law does not explicitly require parental involvement, efforts should be made to collaborate with parents or guardians in creating a plan. The reading improvement plan should be shared with the parents or guardians. It is beneficial to keep parents or guardians informed of on-going progress.

Parents or guardians of students who are identified with a reading difficulty are notified in writing or in electronic form no later than 15 days after the identification. Notification will come from the student’s school.