Help with reading with expression!

[Ispywith]

My DD aged 5 in year1 is on blue level books, she really enjoys school & books. We have a lot if phonics at home and is way ahead with what they send home from school. She is quite a shy girl & I don't imagine she volunteers answers at school. She reads chapter books (short ones with coloured pictures) from the library. In my mind she needs to go up a reading level ( but find it really cringe worthy saying to the teacher - as surely they should know)! My plan was to encourage her with comprehension & expression whilst reading the easier books, but can't really explain to her how. Sounds daft doesn't it as I read up her & change voices etc during the story. Does anyone have any games tips they can share which may help? Have seen the comprehension dice, but really need help with expression, speech marks etc. thanks!

[Ispywith]

Ps sorry about typos - stupid phone

[Tiggles]

DS2 (Yr1) reads with very good expression, but he is a very expressive child, he naturally has massive over the top expressions on his face, so maybe it was easy for him to apply this to his reading.
However, as soon as he started reading we started talking about expression. Starting with any lines which ended in an !. If he saw an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence he started off just having to shout that line. But then when he could do that, he had to think harder about the context was the person actually shouting "Oh no!", or were they saying it in a shocked way for example, in which case he would put on his shocked face and say the words. It made it easier for him to put the right expression into the words. When he was expressing the text I would make sure that I made an appropriate response, e.g. laughing in the right place, even if to an adult it really wasn't that funny. Or taking a gasp if he was saying something shocking or scary. So he grew to learn how to draw the audience in.

On days when he didn't bother with the expression I did sometimes read a story back to him in a very flat voice. It might lead to him collapsing in giggles, but he got the point.

Sorry, none of those were actually games, but maybe might help.

[suebfg]

Yes, we pointed out the exclamation mark to DS who is 5 and he knows that his voice should be more expressive then (upwards inflection is the proper term I think)

[Ispywith]

Thank you, some good ideas. Like the idea of facial expressions or bit of acting may be fun!! Just bought "please Mrs Butler" funny school poetry book which I remember as a child.......another friend recommended it for voices & school humour! She has really good comprehension but think its the expression she looses when concentrating.

[moonstorm]

I think you have to model expression - you read a sentence with expression and get them to read it back to you in the same way. Reading with (to) them lots help.