The Importance of Early Reading and Parental Guidance. Learning to read at a young age is important for the development of the child. It helps them develop a better understand of their surroundings, allows them to gather information from printed materials, and provides them with a wonderful source of entertainment when they read stories and rhymes. Children develop at different rates, and some children will develop reading skills quicker than other children; however, what's important is that as the parent, you are keenly aware of your child's maturity and reading level to provide them with appropriate books and activities to help them improve.
As parents, you are the most important teacher for your children. You will introduce your child to books and reading. Below we have some tips to help you teach your child to read.
Here are three tips to help teach your child how to read:
Teach Your Child How to Read Tip #1
Introduce Alphabet Letters and Sounds Together: Teach your child the names and sounds of alphabet letters simultaneously. This method has been shown to be effective in helping children learn letter sounds faster.
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.
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."
Then have your child say the /A/ sound while tracing the letter with his or her index finger.
Teaching a Child How to Read Tip #2
Emphasize Reading Order: Teach your child that reading should progress from left to right and top to bottom. Reinforcing this concept helps prevent confusion about the direction of reading. 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
Start with Final Consonant Blends: Introduce final consonant blends early, as they can lead to learning rhyming words. This approach helps expand your child's reading vocabulary effectively. 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.
Click here to for a simple, step-by-step program that can help your child learn to read, and watch a video of a 2 year old child reading (click here!).
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