WHEN DO KIDS LEARN TO READ?
As a former first grade teacher, teaching children to read
is one of my greatest passions! But because most children don’t start actually
“reading” until around 6 years old (which is upwards of the targeted age range
for my blog), I didn’t want parents to feel pressured that their 3-year old
needs to start reading (which, by the way, they don’t!). However, the
information shared below is general information that is beneficial for children
of all ages, whether your child is ready to read or not. Don’t
implement all of these strategies at once, nor should you expect your child to
be able to do everything right away. Learning to read is a process and
the information below is simply for you to implement when you feel your
child is ready.
Please also recognize that although the suggestions below
are labeled as “steps”, they are not necessarily in consecutive order, nor are
they in order of importance. The information you will find here is simply a
guide to help you see how each of the components of reading fit together!
HOW TO TEACH KIDS TO READ
1. READ ALOUD TO YOUR CHILD
Teaching your child to read is truly a process that begins at infancy. No, I am most certainly NOT advocating programs
that claim to teach your baby to read using flashcards! What I AM encouraging
you to do is to begin reading with your newborn within days of welcoming her
home! Not only is ongoing reading
time building a special bonding time for the two of you, it instills
in her a love for books. Enjoyment while reading is one of the single greatest
predictors of reading success in school-age children. If
children don’t learn from an early age to enjoy reading, it will most likely
hinder their ability sometime down the road.
How much you read to your child is completely up to you and
your family, but I suggest you aim to read at least 3-4 books a day, even while
your child is very young. As she gets a little older and can sit for longer
stretches of time, make it a family goal to read together for at least
20-minutes each day.
Here are a few suggestions for the types of books to read to
your child. But by all means, read whatever your child responds to and enjoys!
- Birth-1 Year: Lullabies, Board Books (with real pictures), Cloth Books (with various textures), Song Books
- 1
Year-3 Years: Rhyming Books, Song Books, Short-Story Board Books
- 3
Years-5 Years: Alphabet Books, Song Books, Picture Books, Rhyming
Books
2. ASK QUESTIONS
Asking questions while reading to your child is not only
great for encouraging your child to interact with the book, but it is also
extremely effective in developing his ability to comprehend what
he is reading. You see, if our main objective in “reading” is getting our child
to “sound out” words, we have missed the boat entirely. Even children who can
decode words and “read” with great fluency still might not be able to
comprehend what they are reading. If a child can’t comprehend what he is
reading, there really is no point to reading at all!
While your child is a baby, ask him questions such as, “Do
you see the cat?” while pointing at the picture of the cat. This will not only
develop his vocabulary, it will also encourage him to interact with the book
that he is reading. As he gets older, ask him to point to things in the book
himself and make the noises of the animals he sees.
Once your child is about 2 or 3-years of age,
begin 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 is going to be
about (predicting). While reading, ask him what he thinks is going to happen in
the story or why he thinks a character made a particular choice (inferring). If
a character is depicting a strong emotion, identify that emotion and ask your
child if he has ever felt that way (connecting). At the end of the book, ask if
his prediction(s) came true. Afterwards, ask him to tell you what he remembered
happening in the book (summarizing).
Modifying each of these techniques during read-alouds to
meet the developmental stage of your child is a great way to promote and
increase reading comprehension!
3. BE A GOOD (READING) EXAMPLE
Even if your child is fascinated with books from an early
age, her fascination will quickly dwindle if she does not see reading modeled
in her home. If you are not an avid reader yourself, make a conscious effort to
let your children see you reading for at least a few minutes each day! Read a
magazine, a cookbook, a novel, your Bible…it’s up to you! But show your child
that reading is something that even adults need to do. If you have a son, share
this article with your husband. Sons need to see their fathers read, especially
since it is not something that young energetic boys are naturally prone to
doing.
As parents, we can sometimes get wrapped up with what
exactly our children should be doing to be successful. But we
often forget that children often learn by example. Grab a book and take a load
off…for your child’s sake, of course!
4. IDENTIFY LETTERS IN NATURAL SETTINGS
Before our boys were born, we painted and hung large wooden
letters spelling their name above the cribs as a decorative accent in their
rooms. I would have never guessed that those wooden letters would have such a
learning incentive for Big Brother! Around age 2.5, he began asking what
letters were above his name. That’s honestly how he learned to spell his
name…and he can spell his brother’s name too because he has taken an interest
in his letters as well. In technical terms, this is called “environmental
print” and includes all of the print we are surrounded by–fast food signs,
labels, traffic signs, clothing, magazines, etc.
Often times, we want to force our children
to learn letter names by a certain age. We buy flashcards or DVDs claiming to
teach our children their letters. We drill our 2-year old over and over for
minutes on end. Don’t buy into this…allow your kid to be a kid and take
advantage of the “teachable moments” as they come along! Children’s minds are
like sponges and are certainly capable of memorizing the
alphabet from drilling, but that’s not the most effective method that will produce
the best long-term results. Your child will be curious about the print he sees
around him and will ask questions. That’s your chance to jump in with a
practical application that actually has real meaning and
significance to your child.
Don’t misunderstand me and think that I don’t think learning
the alphabet is important. It is certainly important…but the method in which we
teach them is even more important! Always keep in mind that
our ultimate goal is to foster a lifelong learner who loves to read, not a
child who has simply memorized without any significance.
5. INCORPORATE MULTIPLE DOMAINS OF DEVELOPMENT
Children learn best when multiple senses or areas
of development are included. That’s why hands-on learning produces
longer retention and more meaningful application. Once your child has shown an
interest in letters and you have already begun to utilize natural settings for
identifying those letters, begin implementing activities that incorporate as
many senses as possible. Keep in mind that learning letter names isn’t nearly as
important as learning their sounds!
There are a plethora of ways to incorporate multiple domains
of development in regards to letter recognition and early-reading
skills. Alphabet
crafts allow your child to learn the shape of a letter along with an
association of the sound it makes all the while utilizing fine motor
skills in the process of cutting, gluing, and creating! Playing games
that involve gross motor
skills (like tossing beanbags on the appropriate letter) are also
wonderful ways to include movement. Of course, every child loves songs and
rhymes! Take an inventory of your child’s strengths and areas of interest and
target activities to fit them!
6. CLASSIFY THE GENRE
Once your child is around 5 and can recognize the difference
between real and make-believe, I would suggest starting to help your child
understand various genres of books during your reading time together. This
might seem complicated, but it’s really not. There are around 5 different
genres of children’s books that I would encourage you to point out to your
little one. Of course you can use the term “type” rather than “genre” if that
is easier to remember.
- Nonfiction (real
stories or facts about animals, places, people, etc)
- Fantasy (make-believe,
can’t happen in real life because of magic, talking animals, etc)
- Realistic
Fiction (a made-up story, but it could technically happen in real
life because the characters and situations arebelievable)
- Alphabet
Books
- Song Books
When children classify a book into a certain genre, they
have to first summarize the book in their head and recall details. Then they
have to use that information to decide which type of genre that particular
books fits into. Finally, your child will be recalling details from other books
in the same genre, making connections between the two. This simple activity
that might take 5-10 seconds of your time after reading a book but it certainly
packs a punch of thought and processing in that young brain!
Also, it’s important to note that not all books will fit
into one of these genres, especially books that are considered “phonics
readers.” I would suggest that you do this exercise only with high-quality
children’s literature, not with books that are attempting to get your child to
“sound-out” on their own. Most picture books found in children’s libraries will
fit into one of these genres.
Remember, our goal is for our children to learn to comprehend what
they’re reading…otherwise reading will honestly do them little good. When we
encourage our children to think about and process the book we’ve just read
together, we are inadvertently modeling what we hope they’ll one day do
independently!
7. WORD FAMILIES
To put it simply, word families are
words that rhyme. Teaching children word families is a phonemic awareness
activity that helps children see patterns in reading. This is an important
skill because it allows children to begin “reading” by grouping sets of letters
within a word. The first part of a word is called the onset and
the last part of the word is conveniently called the rime. Word
families share a similar “rime” as the onset changes.
Once your child recognizes the word “mop”, he’ll then have
an advantage to reading all of the other words that have the same rime (top,
pop, stop, cop, hop) because only one letter is changing. Plus, recognizing
rhyming words is a great language skill in and of itself!
8. PHONEMIC AWARENESS AND PHONICS
“Phonemes” are the smallest sounds in the English language
. These sounds
are made up of consonants, short vowels, long vowels, and digraphs. “Phonemic
Awareness” consists of learning those sounds and how to manipulate them within
a word. Digraphs are unique sounds comprised of individual letters like /th/,
/sh/, /ch/, etc.
“Phonics” includes learning how to spell those sounds and
the various rules that the English language follows. Phonics is an important
components of reading/spelling, but it should never be the main focus. Again,
we are looking to balance our literacy “program” with reading comprehension as
the end result.
9. DECODING
Decoding is often referred to as “sounding it out.” This is
an important element in teaching your child to read, but it certainly
isn’t the most important. Once your child knows the sounds
each letter makes (which is taught in real, meaningful situations),
she is ready to begin putting words together. When looking at a short word,
encourage her to say each individual sound /b/, /a/, /t/, and then put
them together “bat”.
As children decode words with more frequency, they will
become more proficient at automatically identifying that word. Sometimes this
task is tedious, though, so it’s important to find creative ways to make it
fun.
10. SIGHT WORDS
Sight words,
also known as high-frequency words, are the most common words in our written
language are are often difficult to decode phonetically because they don’t
follow the rules of phonics. Because of this, they must be memorized. As I’ve
shared with you before, I am not an advocate of rote memorization for optimal
learning because I feel it only utilizes the lowest level of cognitive
processes. However, sight words must be memorized in order for your child to
become a fluent reader. There are a few popular lists of sight words that
individual researchers have found beneficial, including the Dolche
List and the Fry
List. Don’t get overwhelmed when looking at this list…just start working on
a few sight words at a time when you feel your child is ready.
As you’ve probably noticed, there is no “magic formula” to
teach your child how to read. The points we’ve discussed in previous posts have
highlighted simple, effective strategies that are easy to modify for your child.
After all, every child learns differently! This series is not to be used as a
“checklist” and think that once you’ve covered all the strategies your child
will be proficiently reading. Rather, this series provides valuable information
to you so that you can guide your child while creating a print-rich, learning
environment to foster his/her growth as a reader. Don’t rush and don’t stress!
While it’s important to take advantage of the prime-learning time, it’s even
more important to let your kid be a kid!
LEARNING TO READ
In summary, here are some practical suggestions you can
implement every day based on the learning to read strategies shared with you in
this post. Obviously, you can’t implement all of these suggestions with
children of all ages, so use your judgement about what is the best way
to teach your child to read.
- Read
to your child every day!
- Ask
your child questions before, during, and after reading.
- Let
your child see you reading.
- Look
for letters while out and about and in the environment around you.
- When
teaching letters and letter sounds, incorporate as many senses as
possible.
- Read
a variety of books and make a game out of guessing the genre.
- Have
fun rhyming!
- Work
on letter sounds and manipulating them within words (phonemic awareness)
- Encourage
your child to sound out short words (consonant, vowel, consonant).
- Practice
memorizing a few sight words each day.
- Most of all, have fun together!
Reading Head Start by Sarah Shepard? is a super simple and
extremely effective system that willeven
teach 2 and 3 year old children to read.This is a unique
reading program developed by a loving
parent and English teacher of 14 years,who successfully
taught all of her children to read before
turning 3 years
old.The reading system she developed is so effective that by the time her
daughter
was just 4 yearsold,
she was already reading at a grade 3 level.She has a video to prove it
