Teaching Your Young Child to Read
How to Get Your Child Ahead and Prepared for School Success
Have you ever noticed why teachers always have children who excel in school? It isn't necessarily genetics; it's that teachers know how to work with their own kids to ensure success. They know the easiest and best way to make sure their child gets ahead and stays ahead in school is to work with him at home from an early age to develop reading skills. It's also an excellent way to spend quality time together, sharing in the child's triumphs as he develops, and making sure the child realizes the importance of learning.
Here is an easy how-to guide that gives you all the tips and tricks the best teachers know!
Hooked on Phonics
It's fairly self-explanatory to know that the building blocks of reading are the very letters that spell the words. But, instead of only going through the alphabet song and helping your child recognize which letter is which, go through the sounds as well. This will help when it comes time to sound out words. Any teacher supply store or website will carry letter flash cards. Make it a game for your child, and make sure you praise when necessary, kindly correct where necessary, and practice patience as your child learns.
The next step is to work with letter combinations. No child will automatically know that "ph" when put together makes an "ffff" sound. You can also buy letter combination flash cards so you don't have to remember all of them off the top of your head. Once your child has mastered this, start writing words for your child to sound out. Once the child identifies the word, write it on a big strip of paper in bold letters and tape it to a wall in the child's room. Then every day go through the words on the wall so your child remembers them. Watch your child's sense of accomplishment as the wall becomes filled with words he can read!
Sight Words
Children learn to read both by sounding out words and being able to identify words they have seen and memorized before, like the "Stop" on a stop sign. It makes sense then that another method teachers use in conjunction with the phonics skills is to identify sight words. Children memorize their favorite books (especially the rhythmic ones) and after repeated experience with the book, will be excited to "read" it to you. A good way to speed up the process is to read a children's book with big letters to your child and have the child watch as you point to the words as you read. Then periodically stop and ask the child to identify a word you recently read. When a child gets a word right, again write it on a big strip of paper and hang it on the word wall for daily review.
Read to Your Child
Make sure you are reading to your child every night for at least fifteen minutes besides the sessions where you make your child identify words. At this time, don't worry about having your child follow as you read. Let the children pick books they enjoy that are slightly above their level so they can begin to understand vocabulary used in context, hear the rhythm of a fluent reader, and the pronunciation of common words. When you are finished reading, ask your child questions to make sure he comprehends what was going on in the story.
Continue to work with your child as he grows and develops into a good reader. But, when you start seeing that happen, make your child read to you instead of the other way around. The child will be very proud of his accomplishment, and ahead of his classmates in school.
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