3 Tips to Teach Your Child How to Read
By: ChildrenLearningReading.com
It's crucial for children to learn to read early on as it aids in their development by improving their understanding of the environment, enabling them to acquire knowledge from written materials, and providing them with an enjoyable pastime through reading stories and poems. Although children progress at different rates, it's essential for parents to be mindful of their child's maturity and reading level, providing them with suitable books and activities to help enhance their skills.
Teaching your child to read is a significant responsibility, and as a parent, you play a vital role in this process. You are the primary educator who will introduce your child to books and reading. Here are 3 tips to assist you in teaching your child to read.
1. Teach Your Children Letter Names and Sounds Simultaneously
Research has shown that children learn best when they are taught both letter names and sounds simultaneously. To teach your child the letter sounds, have them slowly trace the letter while vocalizing the sound at the same time. For example, when teaching the letter "A", you can say, "The letter A makes the /A/ (ah) sound," and have your child trace the letter with his or her index finger while saying the /A/ sound.
This approach has been found to be effective in helping children learn the sounds of letters whose names provide cues to their sounds, according to a study involving 58 preschoolers who 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]
2. Emphasize Proper Reading Order
While teaching your child to read, it's crucial to emphasize that the correct reading order is from left to right and top to bottom. Although it may seem like common knowledge to adults, children are not innately aware that printed text should be read in this manner. Consequently, it's not uncommon to see children reading from right to left because they were never explicitly taught to read from left to right. Therefore, when instructing your child how to read, it's essential to emphasize this point consistently.
3. Teach Your Child Final Consonant Blends and Rhyming Words First
It is recommended to teach final consonant blends first. By teaching words such as "at" and "and," you can lead your child directly to learning words that rhyme with them. For instance, when teaching "at," you can introduce words that rhyme with it, such as:
Lat
Pat
Mat
Cat
Sat
Bat
Spat
Chat
Similarly, for "and," you can teach rhyming words such as:
Sand
Band
Land
Hand
Stand
Bland
Brand
Grand
and so on.
You can start teaching blends to your child once they have learned the sounds of some consonants and short vowel sounds. It's not necessary to wait until your child has mastered the sounds of all letters before teaching blends.
Although learning to read is a lengthy process, it doesn't have to be challenging. By breaking it down into intuitive and logical steps, a child as young as two years old can start learning to read, and older children can achieve even more.
Notes:
1. J Exp Child Psychol. 2010 Apr;105(4):324-44. Epub 2010 Jan 25.
Learning letter names and sounds: effects of instruction, letter type, and phonological processing skill.
Piasta SB, Wagner RK.
Preschool Language and Literacy Lab, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
