Teaching a child to read is a fulfilling and educational
process, both for the parent and child. Whether you home school your kids or
just want to give your child a head-start, you can begin teaching your child to
read at home. With the right tools and tactics, your child will be reading in
no time.
Starting Early
1-Read to your child on a regular
basis. As with all things, it's difficult to learn anything without
exposure to it. In order to get your child interested in reading, you should be
reading to them on a regular basis. If you’re able, this should start when they
are an infant and continue through their school years. Read books with stories
they comprehend; at a young age this may lead you to read 3-4 small books a
day.
- Books that combine other senses besides listening help your small child to comprehend the story as you read it. For example, read many books that have pictures, tactile pages, sounds, or have accompanying scents.
- Try
reading them books that might slightly challenge their comprehension
level but that have an interesting or engaging story.
2-Ask interactive questions. Even
before your child learns to read, they can learn reading comprehension. As you
read stories to them aloud, ask them questions about the characters or the
plot. For a toddler, these may be questions like “Do you see the dog? What is
the dog’s name?”. The questions can escalate in difficulty as the reading level
does.
- Help
to teach your child critical thinking skills by asking open-ended
questions about stories. You might not hear complex verbal responses
until your child is four or five years old, but ask away and be patient.
3-Make books easily accessible. It’s
no good if you have books around, but located in places that your child can’t
easily take them. Keep books low to the ground and in typical play-areas so
that your child begins to associate them with play activities.
- Because
your child may be touching and reading the books often, be sure to choose
ones that have wipeable pages and that aren’t incredibly sentimental.
Pop-up books may not be the best option for young children.
- A
fancy bookshelf may seem like the most attractive option, but until your
child is in school focus on the utilitarian purposes of book storage.
- Set
up a reading space next to the bookshelf. Set some beanbags, pillows, and
comfy chairs around to sit in while reading. The top of the bookshelf can
hold cups and snacks for having while reading.
4-Set a good example. Show
your child that reading is interesting and worthwhile by reading for yourself.
Spend a minimum of ten minutes a day reading when your child is around, so that
they see you enjoying the activity on your own. Even if you’re not an avid
reader, find something to read - a magazine, the newspaper, or a cookbook all
count. Soon they’ll become interested in reading on their own, simply as a
result of seeing you doing it too.
- Include
your child in your reading time. If you’re reading something
child-friendly, tell them about what you’re reading. Accompany this by
pointing to words on the page to help them connect the lines on the page
with the sounds that form words.
5-Get access to a library. This
can be done in two ways: create your own mini-library at home by collecting
dozens of books in your child’s reading level, or make weekly trips to the
local public library together to check out books. Having a variety of books on
hand (especially with an older child) will add interest for reading, and help
to incorporate more vocabulary into their knowledge base.
- That being said, don't turn down a request to re-read a favorite book just because it's already been read a dozen times.
6-Start to make word-sound
associations. Before you even start getting into the alphabet and
sound specifics, help your child recognize that the lines on the page are
directly correlated to the words you are speaking. As you read aloud to them,
point to each word on the page at the same time you say it. This will help your
child grasp the pattern of words/lines on the page relating to the words you
speak in terms of length and sound.
7-Avoid using flashcards. Some
companies have advertised specialized flashcards to help babies, toddlers, and
preschool age children to read. In general, flashcards are not the most useful
or effective technique for teaching reading skills. Time spent reading stories
with your child will be much more beneficial than flashcards. “Reading aloud to
young children, particularly in an engaging manner, promotes emergent literacy
and language development and supports the relationship between child and
parent. In addition it can promote a love for reading which is even more
important than improving specific literacy skills.
Teaching the Basics
1-Teach your child the alphabet. When
your child has developed word awareness, begin breaking down words into
individual letters. Although the alphabet song is the most classic means of
teaching the alphabet, try getting creative. Explain each of the letters with
their name, but don’t worry about trying to incorporate the sounds the letters
make yet.
- Teach lowercase letters first. Capital letters account for only five percent of all letters in writing English. Therefore, pay more attention to teaching the lowercase letters. lowercase letters are far more important in developing reading skills.
- Try
making each of the letters out of play-DOH, playing a toss game (where
the child tosses a beanbag/ball onto a specific letter on the floor), or
fishing for foam letters in the bathtub. These are all interactive games
that encourage development on multiple levels.
2-Develop phonemic awareness. One
of the most important steps in teaching reading is associating a spoken sound
with a letter or letter-pair. This process is known as phonemic awareness.
There are 44 speech sounds created by the 26 letters in our alphabet, and each
sound must be taught paired with its letter(s) counterpart. This includes the
long and short sound produced by each individual letter, as well as the
specialized sounds some combined letters make (like ‘ch’ and ‘sh’).
- Focus on a single letter/part/sound at a time. Avoid confusion and build a solid foundation by working at a steady pace through all of the speech sounds.
- Give real life examples of each speech sound; for example, state that the letter ‘A’ makes the ‘ah’ sound, like at the beginning of the word ‘apple.’ This can be turned into a guessing game, when you speak an easy word (like apple) and have the child guess the letter that it starts with.
- Use games similar to those used when teaching the alphabet, that combine critical thinking on the part of the child in order to determine sound/letter correlations. See the aforementioned list for ideas, but substitute in sounds.
- It
is easier for children to develop phonemic awareness when words are
broken down into their smallest parts. This can be done with the clapping
game (clapping out each syllable in a word) or by sounding-out words into
their individual letters.
3-Teach your child rhymes. Rhyming
teaches phonemic awareness and letter recognition, in addition to the most
basic English words. Read nursery rhymes to your child, and then eventually
make lists of easy-to-read rhymes such as mop, top, flop, pop, and cop. Your
child will begin to see the patterns of sounds that are made when certain
letters are combined - in this case, the sound ‘o-p’ makes.
4-Teach your child to read using
explicit phonics. Traditionally, children are taught to recognize a
word based on its size, the first and last letters, and the general sound. This
method of teaching is known as implicit phonics - working from the largest
piece down. However, studies have shown that readable vocabulary dramatically
increases (from 900 words to 3000 words by the third grade) when taught in the
opposite fashion: breaking each word into the smallest parts, and building them
up into a full word - explicit phonics. Help your child to begin reading by
having them sound-out each individual letter without looking at the overall
word first.
- Don’t move onto explicit phonics until your child has developed adequate phonemic awareness. If they cannot associate sounds with letters or letter pairs quickly, they need a bit more practice before moving onto complete words.
5-Have your child practice
decoding. Classically known as ‘sounding out’ words, decoding is when
a child reads a word by making the sounds of each individual letter, rather
than trying to read the whole word at once. Reading is broken up into two
primary parts: decoding/reading a word, and comprehending its meaning. Don’t
expect your child to recognize and comprehend words just yet; have them focus
on decoding and sounding out word parts.
- Don’t use whole stories or books yet; have your child read from word lists or from a basic story (not focusing on the plot). This is another great time to use rhymes for practice.
- Decoding aloud is typically easier for the child (and you) to learn how to say the word. Have them break it into parts with clapping if necessary.
- Do
not be rigid in how the child pronounces the sounds. Regional accents and
weak auditory skills make it hard for children to say most sounds in an
academically correct way. Accept a reasonable effort. Recognize that
learning sounds is only an intermediate step to learning to read, it is
not the goal.
6-Do not worry about grammar..
Preschoolers, kindergartners, and first graders are very concrete in the way
they think and cannot handle complicated concepts. By age four, most English
speaking children already have an excellent grasp of grammar and in due time,
they will learn all the formal grammatical rules. At this point, you need to
concentrate only on the mechanical skill of reading, that is learning to decode
new words and incorporating them in memory to build fluency.
7-Build up an archive of sight
words. Certain words in the English vocabulary are spoken often, but
don’t follow the typical phonics rules. These words are easier to memorize by
shape association than by sound, and are therefore known as ‘sight words.’ Some
sight words include ‘they,’ ‘she’, ‘an,’ ‘said,’ and ‘the.’ The complete list
of sight words, called the Dolch list, can be found online and broken down into
sections to work through.
- Show
your child sight words on a piece of paper. Le them copy it and after
telling them what the word is, ask them to tell YOU what the words is.
Increasing Difficulty
1-Begin giving your child complete
stories. Odds are, your child will be in school by the time they are
able to read and will be given their own reading material by their teachers.
Help them to read these whole stories by encouraging explicit phonics use, and
recognizing vocabulary. As their word recognition increases, they’ll be able to
more fully understand story plots and meanings.
- Allow
your child to look at the pictures - it doesn’t count as cheating if they
do. Image and word association is a helpful aspect of building
vocabulary.
2-Have your child describe the
story to you. After every reading session, have your child describe
what the story was about to you. Try to get them to be detailed, but don’t
expect an elaborate response. An easy and fun way to help encourage this is to
use puppets who represent characters in the story, so your child can describe
it to you through them.
3-Ask questions about the stories. Similar
to when you were reading stories to your child, every time your child reads ask
them questions about what they’ve just read. At first it will be difficult for
them to think critically about meanings of words and the buildup of character
development and plot (or the semblance of those things in the most basic of
stories), but over time they will develop the necessary skills to answer
questions.
- Make a questions list that your child can read; their ability to read and understand the provided questions is nearly as helpful as answering the questions themselves.
- Start
with direct questions, such as ‘who was the main character in the book?,’
instead of more abstract questions like ‘why was the main character
upset?’
4-Incorporate writing in with the
reading. Reading is a necessary precursor to writing, but as your
child develops reading skills have them practice their writing in conjunction.
Children learn to read faster and easier if they learn to write at the same
time. The motor memory of the letters, listening to their sounds and seeing
them in writing will reinforce new learning. So, teach your child to write
letters and words.
- You’ll
notice an enhanced reading ability as your child learns to spell by
decoding and sounding out words. Work slowly though, and don’t expect
perfection.
5-Continue reading to your child. Just
as you taught your child the joy of reading before they knew how, you should
continue to promote reading by reading to/with them on a daily basis. They’ll
develop a stronger phonemic awareness when they can see words as you read them,
rather than struggling to do both at the same time themselves.
SOREN ROSIER
PhD Candidate, Education
Try reading harder books along with your child. PhD
candidate and former teacher Soren Rosier says: "A child's instructional
reading level is often higher than their independent reading level. When you're
reading together, try reading books that are a little bit above their
independent level. Then, when you send them off to read by themselves, switch
back to books that are a little easier."
6-Have your child read aloud to
you. You’ll be given a better idea of your child’s reading ability
when they read out loud, and they’ll be forced to slow down their reading to
correctly sound out words. Avoid stopping your child to correct them while
reading though, as doing so can interrupt their train of thought and make
comprehending what they’re reading more difficult.
- Reading
out loud doesn’t have to be limited to stories; whenever you are around
words, have your child sound them out to you. Road signs are a great
example of something your child sees on a daily basis, and can practice
reading out loud to you.
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she was already reading at a grade 3 level.She has a video to prove it
