3 Tips to Teach Your child How to Read
Learning to read at an early age is critical for a child’s growth. It allows children to get a better understanding of their surroundings, collect knowledge from printed sources, and provide a tremendous source of amusement when they read stories and rhymes. Children develop at different rates, and some gain reading abilities easier than others. What matters is that you, as a parent, be aware of your child’s maturity and reading level so that you can provide them with appropriate books and activities to help them grow and improve.
As a parent, you are your child’s most essential teacher and champion. Throughout their youth, you’ll know just how to accentuate their strengths and strengthen their flaws. One of the many important aspects of child development is introducing your child to books and reading. However, it isn’t always as simple as it appears. The road to your child’s early reading success, like many parts of life, may be challenging if you don’t have any direction. Where finding just 15 minutes a day, can become increasingly difficult to come by. You heard me right – those 15 minutes a day, will give your child all the skills and confidence to reach their full potential
Teach Your Child How to Read Tip #1
Teach your child alphabet letters and sounds at the same time. Studies have shown that children learn best when they are taught the letter names and letter sounds at the same time. In one study, 58 preschool children were randomly assigned to receive instructions in letter names and sounds, letter sound only, or numbers (control group). The results of this study are consistent with past research results in that it found children receiving letter name and sound instruction were most likely to learn the sounds of letters whose names included cues to their sounds. [1]
When teaching your child the letter sounds, have them slowly trace the letter, while saying the sound of the letter at the same time. For example, if you were teaching your child the letter “A”, you would say:
“The letter A makes the /A/ (ah) sound.”
Teaching a Child How to Read Tip #2
Then have your child say the /A/ sound while tracing the letter with his or her index finger.
When teaching your child to read, always emphasize with them that the proper reading order should be from left to right, and top to bottom. To adults, this may seem so basic that anyone should know it. However, our children are not born with the knowledge that printed text should be read from left to right and top to bottom, and this is why you’ll sometimes see children reading from right to left instead – because they were never explicitly taught to read from left to right. When teaching your child how to read, always emphasize this point with them.
Teach Your Child How to Read Tip #3
Teach final consonant blends first. Teaching words such “at” and “and” can lead your child directly to learning words that rhyme with these. For example, for “at”, you can have:
Lat
Pat
Mat
Cat
Sat
Bat
Spat
Chat
For “and”, you can have these rhyming words:
Sand
Band
Land
Hand
Stand
Bland
Brand
Grand
and so on…
You can start teaching blends once your child has learned the sounds of some consonants and short vowel sounds. You don’t need to wait until your child has mastered the sounds of all the letters before teaching blends.
Learning to read is a long process, but it doesn’t have to be a difficult process. Broken down into intuitive and logical steps, a child as young as two years old can learn to read, and older children can accomplish even more.
