Teaching toddlers or young boy and girl to read is arduous work. One must know how to teach kids of adeto read in engaging and effective way. Parents or guardians never figure out the way of how to make their kids read the books, stories, books, textbooks with fluency and at the same time comprehend it properly.
Learning to read is one of the most important things a child will do in his or her life. That’s because we live in a society in which literacy skills are the key to success. When reading ability doesn’t develop overnight, some parents and educators worry they are on the wrong path to instruction.
Teaching a child to read begins at birth with the reinforcement of pre-literacy skills. Nonetheless, most kids will officially learn to read between the ages of 5 and 7.
But choosing the “right” books and the “best” way to teach reading depends on every child. No two individuals will master reading at the same time or pace, and patience and persistence is a must, particularly for kids who struggle with learning difficulties or differences.
One of the most common ways to teach reading is via the sounding out method in which kids are encouraged to read aloud, pronouncing each letter or group of letters until they recognize the word by sound.
1. Teach your child the ABCs first
While it is not necessary to teach children all of their letters before beginning to read, it certainly helps if they are familiar with them, so teaching them the alphabet seems like a logical place to begin.
You can do this by singing songs or rhymes which help them learn their letters. For instance, you can sing “A B C D E F G, H I J K L M N O P.” You could also teach them the song ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ which is a fun way to learn the order of the alphabet.
2. Help your child recognize patterns in words
The next step in teaching children to read is to teach them how to recognize patterns. After all, the majority of words follow one rule or pattern or another. Once children understand these rules or patterns, they can use them as a guide for sounding out words with which they are not completely familiar. For instance, most English sounds follow this pattern:
CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant)
One example of this is ‘hat.’ The word has three letters with each having a unique sound – h makes the /h/ sound, a makes the /a/ sound and t makes the /t/. So if someone were trying to read this word but was unsure of what its last letter was , they could figure it out by looking at the first two letters and remembering that /h/ usually follows an /a/.
3. Play word games with your child
Once your child is familiar with the rules for common letter combinations, you can play a variety of games which will help him to use this knowledge while reading. One option is called ‘Run-On Sentences.’
Start by writing a sentence on a white board or sheet of paper – something like ‘I love ice cream,’ then ask your child to read it out loud, sounding out each word so they know how it’s supposed to sound.
Next, have them take turns adding words before or after the written sentence so that it makes sense when it’s read aloud. The other person should try to add a word which makes sense in context.
For instance, if the first person added ‘I love chocolate,’ it would make sense to add an ice cream cone after the word ‘love’ since it follows the rules for common letter combinations that are found in English.
Your child can also play semi-formal versions of this game by having one player write a sentence on a piece of paper and asking another player to try to read it based on his understanding of how words are formed.
4. Get your child started with books
Once your child has picked up some basic knowledge about reading including letter sounds, he will be able to start using them when reading simple material, such as books designed for beginning readers.
Start by looking at short picture books which have only a few sentences per page, and only a few words on each page. These include ‘See Me Read,’ ‘My First I can Read’ and ‘I Can Read it All by Myself.’ As your child becomes more familiar with the process of sounding out words, he might be interested in reading chapter books or even simple novels .
5. Make reading fun!
Above all else, make sure that you’re making reading enjoyable for your child. This will help him to want to learn how to read so that he can spend time doing fun activities such as looking at picture books together or going to the library. Reading should be a pleasurable experience for both of you – don’t wait until it’s time for school to start teaching them how to read – begin when your child is young.
