One of the most fulfilling experiences you can have is teaching your child to read. From pre-readers to school-age kids, here are 10 suggestions for teaching a kid to read!
When Do Children Learn to Read?
As a first grade teacher, teaching children to read is one of my biggest passions! And because most kids don’t really start “reading” until they’re 6 years old (which is the top goal for my blog), I don’t want parents to feel like their child is that old. 3 should start reading (which, By the way, they don’t!). However, the information shared below is general information that is useful for children of all ages, whether your child is ready to read or not. Don’t do all of these steps at once, or expect your child to be able to do everything at once. Learning to read is a process and the information below is just for you to implement when you think your child is ready.
Once your child is ready to start reading, it will be important to find a structured and clear method that teaches phonics and phonics awareness. What is important. Learning to read is like cracking a cipher (and contrary to what the title of this article suggests, it’s not easy). Every child should learn the code or it makes sense to teach it more clearly than to rely on children figuring it out on their own. Please also note that although the suggestions below are listed as “steps”, they are in no particular order, or in any order of importance. The information you will find here is only a guide to help you see how each part of the reading is appropriate for your reader. If your child has reached school age and you are looking for a program on how to teach a child to read, I recommend the school reading method. How to teach a child to read
Start With Yourself
Teaching your child to read is really a process that starts at a young age. No, I do not recommend programs that claim to teach your child to read using flashcards! What I encourage you to do is start reading with your newborn the day you welcome them home! Not only does regular reading time create a special time for both of you, but it instills a love of books in him. Enjoyment of reading is one of the strongest predictors of academic success in preschoolers. If children are taught from a young age to love reading, it is bound to limit their abilities at some point.
How much you read to your child is entirely up to you and your family, but I recommend reading at least 3-4 books per day, even if your child is young. As he gets older and can sit still for long periods of time, make it a family goal to read together for at least 20 minutes a day.
Here are some recommended books to read to your child. Maybe read anything your child does and enjoys!
Learning at 1 year: lullabies, hardback books (with good pictures), cloth books (different textures), music books.
One year to three years: music book, song book, story book
Ages 3 to 5: alphabet books, music books, picture books, rhyme books
Ask Questions
Asking your child questions while reading is not only great for encouraging your child to interact with the book. But it is also very effective in developing their reading comprehension skills. You see, if our main goal in “reading” is to get our child to “speak” words, we are completely lost. Even children who can decode words and “read” well may not be able to understand what they read. If a child cannot understand what he is reading, there is really no point in reading!
Read article: Ministers of Education Nick Gibb and Robert Halfon Are Back.
When your child is an infant, ask questions like “Do you see a cat?” pointing to a picture of a cat. This will not only build their vocabulary, but will also encourage them to interact with the books they are reading. As he gets older, ask him to point to the things in the book himself and make the noises of the animals he sees.
Once your child is about 2 or 3 years old, start asking questions before, during, and after reading the book. Show your child the cover of the book and ask him what he thinks the story will be about (predict). As you read, ask him what he thinks will happen in the story or why he thinks a character made a certain choice (representation).
If the character represents a strong emotion. Identify that emotion and ask your child if they have ever felt it (link). At the end of the book, ask if the prediction(s) has come true. Then ask him to tell you what he remembers about what happened in the book (summary).
Adapting any of these strategies while reading aloud to match your child’s developmental level is a great way to improve and increase reading comprehension!
Be a good example (read)
Even if your child loves books from an early age, their interest will quickly fade if they don’t see themselves being read to. If you are not an avid reader yourself, make an effort to let your children see you reading for at least a few minutes every day! Read magazines, cookbooks, magazines, your Bible… the choice is yours! And show your child that reading is something even adults should do. If you have a son, share this news with your husband. Boys need to see their dads reading, especially since it’s not something most young men tend to do.
As parents, we may sometimes wonder what our children need to do to be successful. But we often forget that children learn by example. Grab a book and relax… for your baby’s sake, of course!
Identifying Letters in the Natural Environment
Before our boys were born, we painted and hung large wooden letters that spelled out their names on the mantelpiece as room decorations. them. I never thought that these wooden letters would have such educational inspiration for Big Brother! At about 2.5 years of age, he started asking the questions above his name.
That’s right how he learned to say his name…he could say his brother’s name too because his letters were interesting too.
In technical terms, it is called “environmental damage” and includes everything that is printed around us – fast food labels, signs, road signs, clothing, newspapers, etc. Often, we want to force our children to learn the names of the alphabet at a certain age. We buy flash cards or DVDs and say that we are teaching our children their letters. We dig our 2 year old over and over again for minutes.
Don’t back out of this… let your child be a child and enjoy the “teaching time” as it grows! Children’s minds are like sponges and can memorize the alphabet of swimming, but this is not the best method that will produce the best results in the long run.
Your child will want to know the footprints he sees around him, and he will ask questions. This is your chance to start with a hand tool that has real meaning and meaning for your child. Don’t get me wrong and think that I don’t think learning the alphabet is important. It’s really important… but the way we teach them is even more! Always keep in mind that our goal is to raise a life-long learner who loves to read, not a child who has memorized a lot of nonsense.
Combine Multiple Areas of Development
Children learn best when multiple senses or areas of development are focused on. This is why hands-on learning produces a longer retention and more useful application. Once your child has shown an interest in letters and has begun to use natural parameters to identify these letters, begin to implement activities that include as many meanings as possible. Remember that learning the names of letters is not necessary to learn their sounds!
There is a plethora of ways to integrate multiple areas of development when it comes to supporting early literacy and numeracy skills. Making letters allows your child to learn the shapes of letters and their sound connections as they use their fine motor skills to go through the process of cutting, gluing and creating!
Playing games that involve fine motor skills (like throwing a bean bag and matching letters) is also a good way to add movement. Of course, every child loves music and children’s music! Keep track of your child’s strengths in areas of interest and activities around them!
Classify The Genre
Once your child is about 5 years old and can distinguish between real and imaginary, I would suggest starting to help your child understand different types of books during the time you read together. This may sound confusing, but it really isn’t. There are about 5 different types of children’s books that I encourage you to introduce to your young child. Of course, you can use the word “genre” rather than “genre” if it’s easier to remember.
Non-fiction (real stories or facts about animals, places, people, etc.)
Fantasy (pretend, can’t happen in real life due to magic, hearsay, etc.)
True Fiction (a fictional story, but it could technically happen in real life because the characters and situations are believable)
Alphabet book
music book
When children categorize books, they must first memorize the book and remember its details. Then, they will use that information to decide which category the book fits into. Eventually, your child will remember details from other books of the same type, making connections.
Focus on the Phonetics
“Phonemes” are the smallest sounds in the English language (click here for a complete list of phonemes). These sounds are consonants, short vowels, long vowels and digraphs. “Phonological awareness” involves learning these sounds and translating them into words. Digraphs are special sounds made up of different letters such as /th/, /sh/, /ch/, etc.
“Phonology” involves learning how to spell these sounds and the different rules that the English language follows. Learning the rules of phonics is an important tool that helps a child learn to decode and spell. I use literacy programs in my classroom like phonics awareness and phonics activities and love it! It made learning all the tricky languages so much fun! The road now has a school style, which is amazing!
Arrangement
Keeping the code is often called “checking it”. Once your child knows the sound of each letter (which is taught in a real, practical setting), he is ready to start putting words together. Decoding is a process that requires strong phonological awareness and allows for split spelling, this process stores words as “sight words” in long-term memory. As children are exposed to words more often, they will become better at identifying the word automatically. Researchers say it takes between 1 and 4 exposure shifts before words are transferred to long-term memory for automatic retrieval.
Sometimes, this work is boring and can’t be cut, so it’s important to find creative ways to make it fun. When I teach first grade, I buy little fingers that my students can use to point to the letters as they code. It was a huge success and made the process so much fun!
Use literacy programs with clear direction and structure right through preschool and beyond.
Many of these skills are what I would consider “pre-literacy skills” that we as parents can work on during our childhood to make the process of reading easier for our children.
Once your child reaches grade school, make sure you use a curriculum rooted in the science of reading, along with clear and relevant lessons in phonics and phonics awareness. If your child attends school, ask to review the curriculum to ensure he is strong in those specific areas. Some children will learn the phonetic code more easily than others, as Nancy Young’s Reading Scale suggests, but all children benefit from early lessons based on the code.
