Teach Your child To Read

10 Simple Steps To Teach Your Child To Read

Teaching your child to read is one of the most important things you do as a parent. Every child needs to learn how to read as reading is one of the essential skills in our lives. A child cannot start reading in a day and no two children will learn to read at the same pace. But as a parent, we need to choose the best and simple steps to teach our child to read. Initially, it will be hard to make them learn reading but it will be more difficult to teach them if they don’t develop any interest in reading. So we should be patient and foster a love for reading among the kids.

At what age should a child be able to read?

As it is said a child starts learning from their mother’s womb but that doesn’t mean a baby will start reading just after his birth. Yes, everyone knows this fact but what we are not aware of is the right age of a child to read. The simple answer to this is there is no one age for kids to achieve the reading milestone. The brain works differently for each child, some child starts reading independently at a very early age. And on other hand, some children need extra effort and care. Studies show that most children start learning the reading skills from 6 years but few may show a delay in reading. The parents of the children showing delays in reading should not worry or panic. And they should observe them, take necessary steps to help them learn reading.

Today’s Parent published a post on what is the right age of a child to read and do parents need to worry if their child is slow in reading.

10 Simple Steps To Teach Your Child To Read At Home

It is always advisable for parents not to make the learning process very complex. Reading skills may seem tough for the kids but parents need to follow some simple basic steps to make reading easy and enjoyable for kids. We should always try our best to raise a reader, not a child who fears reading.

Here are the simple 10 steps that will help you to teach your child to read at home.

Exploring the skills involved in reading

Before starting the reading lessons for your kids, it is very essential to prepare yourself to teach them. Always pre-plan all the steps you will follow in course of your teaching. For that, it is important to know the skills involved in reading. According to National Reading Panel, there are 5 basic components of reading skills:-

1. Phonemic Awareness
2. Phonics
3. Fluency
4. Vocabulary
5. Comprehension

So focus on all these areas while teaching reading skills to your child and it is good to proceed at your child’s pace don’t make them to learn in hurry, it will demotivate them in reading.

Play Nursery Songs

Nursery rhymes are very cheerful to hear, kids develop hearing of the words used in the nursery rhymes and they try to memorize them. Kids try to find similarities between the rhyming words. The music of the rhymes stimulates a child’s senses and helps them to learn the pattern and sequence of the rhymes. So sing, play or recite nursery rhymes to your baby.

Phonemic Awareness

As a child start listening to rhymes, this will help to create phonemic awareness. Sometimes, phonemic awareness is confused with phonic awareness but they are different.

Phonemic awareness helps the child to understand the sound of the spoken words whereas phonic helps to understand the relation between sounds and letters. So it is very necessary to have sound knowledge of phonemic before learning phonic skills.

Read Aloud

Reading aloud to your child has a lot of benefits to improve your child’s reading skills. Reading aloud regularly will help them to focus on the sounds, it will enhance their listening skills. They will try to use the words they are listening and so it will improve their vocabulary and comprehension. Research has shown that reading aloud to your child motivates them to read.

Interaction After Reading Session

Teaching your child to read will be easy for you and your child both if you follow these simple ways step by step. Whenever you read to your child don’t forget to have interaction after your reading session. Talk to them about the pictures in the book, ask them what they liked most, the words they remember from the story. Also, encourage them to narrate the story in their version. This interactive session will lay the foundation of independent reading for them.

Flash Cards

Flashcards are one of the best tools many home-schooling parents use to teach their kids. This is the easiest way to send signals to the brain and help kids to memorize the words. Kids learn at a very fast rate and using flashcards can expedite a child’s eagerness to learn. Introducing new words, images, or concepts through flashcards is a fun way of learning. It will draw a child’s attention to learn new words and memorize them easily.

Sight Words

Sight words are the commonly used words that kids recognize by seeing without sounding them out. Recognizing and memorizing words by sight helps kids to become fluent and faster readers. Some words don’t go with the phonic sound so it will tricky to teach those words to kids. So these kinds of words can be used as sight words to teach the kids easily. Sight words lay the foundation of reading skills, start with two letters words and see if they can memorize them. And then proceed to three letters words, as by this time they are familiar with two-letter words which will help them to recognize the three-letter words.

Play Word Games

Reading to your kids regularly, introducing flashcards and sight words will give them enough stock of words to memorize and recognize so start playing word games with them. whenever they want you to play something with them, you can encourage them to play word games. This will increase their vocabulary, they will focus on the sounds and letters and it will boost their reading as well writing skills too. You can gift them some word games so that they can learn in a fun way.

You may like to read : Toys For Kids Development

Set an Example

Always be the role model for your kids, they learn a lot from our actions than the teachings we give them. So try to make reading as a family time, read to them regularly, buy books for them. Visit your local library and spend time there with your kids. These little things if we practice regularly, will cultivate the reading skills in our child and they too will love to read.

Be Patient

Last but not the least, be patient with your child, patience is a virtue. The path may not be easy as each child’s capability is different, but we should deal with utmost care and patience with our kids. Let it go slow, don’t make it overwhelming for you and your child. The child should have a positive learning experience, not fear or nervousness.

Best Programs To Teach Your Child To Read

Giving an early start to teach your child to read is quite enthralling, but we should keep in mind that each child has their grabbing capacity. They grow according to their own pace so we should track their development and focus on the skills that are needed for fostering reading skills. Educational specialist says that parents can take help from reading programs but make sure they choose the right one.

Here is the list of best reading programs that will help your child to have a fruitful learning session.