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The ability to read is essential to being able to learn any subject taught in school. If one is to compete favorably in today's job market, a proficiency in reading is required.
We are now living in the information age. You can expect greater demands to be made upon the reading ability of your child.
As parents, I believe it's not only our job but our duty to make sure that our children can read, write, spell and pronounce words correctly.
Poor reading skills can upset proper child development
Here are some facts to think about:
Roughly 85% of children diagnosed with learning difficulties have a primary problem with reading and related language skills.
Reading difficulties are neurodevelopmental in nature and can impede natural child development.
Neurodevelopmental problems don't go away, but they do not mean that a student (or an adult) cannot learn or progress in school and life.
Most children with reading difficulties can be taught reading and strategies for success in school.
When children's reading problems are identified early, they are more likely to learn strategies that will raise their reading to grade level.
Children with poor reading skills often:
Receive poor grades
Are easily frustrated
Have difficulty completing assignments
Have low self-esteem
Have behavior problems
Have more physical illnesses due to stress
Don't like school
Fail to develop to their full potential
Nurture a love of books at an early age:
Remember how loud students moaned when your teacher assigned reading assignments or book reports. This is because the love of books was not fostered in the majority of students at an early age.
If you buy books for your children when they are infants and if you constantly read to him or her, they will grow up thinking books as a friend, something that is natural and part of their lives.
Here are some tips that will encourage your child to enjoy reading:
Read to your child. No matter what age your child happens to be, he will benefit from listening to you read aloud.
Discuss the books you read to your child.
Be a good reading "model" by letting your child see you read.
Introduce your child to books that discuss his hobby, interests, or new experiences.
Make sure your child has a library card. Not only will he or she be amazed at the countless books, but they will see that neighborhood as a whole gather there to enjoy reading. This will give them a sense of community and help with their social development.
Alphabet learning activities for child development:
Sharing the alphabet with your child helps him begin to recognize the shapes of letters and link them with sounds. He will soon learn the difference between individual letters what they look like and what they sound like.
With your toddler by your side, print the letters of his name on paper and say each letter as you write it. Make a name sign for his room or other special places. Have him decorate the sign by pasting stickers or drawing on it.
Place alphabet magnets on your refrigerator or another smooth, safe metal surface. Ask your child to name the letters he plays with and the words he may be trying to spell.
Wherever you are with your child, point out certain letters in signs, billboards, posters, food containers, books, and magazines. When he is 3 to 4 years old, ask him to begin finding and naming some letters.
Make an alphabet book with your kindergartner. Have him draw pictures (you can help). You can also cut pictures from magazines or use photos. Paste each picture into the book. With your child, write next to the picture the letter that stands for the object or person in the picture (for example, "B" for bird, "M" for milk, and so on).
When you show your child letters and words over and over again, he will identify and use them more easily when learning to read and write. He will be eager to learn when the letters and words are connected to things that are part of his life such as the word "car" and "dog".
Using music to teach reading:
This method is based on the fact that children love to read the words of songs they sing.
I am sure that your child has memorized the words to most of his favorite songs. Use this fact to his advantage by writing down the words and then help him to follow along with them as he sings. Use your finger and point to each word as it is sung.
I know what you are thinking. He is merely repeating words that he has memorized. It is true that there may be little or no actual reading. In that respect, it looks like the whole language approach to teaching reading.
But you can easily move it to a phonics approach and have your child identify letters that make the sounds he is singing. (Phonics and whole word will be explained below)
Let's say, for example, that you are singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Look at and point to the title. Ask your child which word is Mary?
Most children will look at the first letter of the word. If he points to the wrong word, correct him and sound out Mary. Show him it's the only word that start with an m.
Sound out m--"emmmm". If he got it right, ask him why it's the correct word. If he doesn't know, tell him it's the only word that starts with "m".
Make the sound of m--"emmmm". Continue on the next sound. Explain that the "y" frequently makes the "ee" sound at the end of words and so on.
Since this exercise is taking place with his favorite songs, this will be very entertaining for him.
Go over all the words in this way. After a while, your child will have shifted from singing words that are memorized to being able to read the words in isolation.
Phonics is the key to strong reading skills:
To date, over 180 research studies have confirmed that phonics is the best way to teach children how to read. Unfortunately, 80% of our nations schools do not use an intensified phonics approach for reading instruction.
They use a whole word approach (see and say) or a combination of phonics and whole word.
While children can learn using the whole word method, it is not the best or most efficient way to learn how to read. The whole word method teaches reading through memorization and guessing.
Unlike the Japanese and Chinese languages which are picture based, the English language is phonetic. There are only 44 sounds while there are about 1 million words in English.
These facts readily explain why having to memorize 44 sounds as opposed to memorizing hundreds of thousands of words is the most efficient way to learn to read.
Reading and writing is simply talking on paper. When children learn to talk, they do so by imitating sounds. They then combine the sounds to form words.
The brain is programmed to learn language in this fashion. Therefore, the most efficient way to learn to read is through phonics because it teaches children to read the same way they learned to talk.
A two decades study on the best way to learn how to read, funded by the National Institute of Health, discovered that the three important aspects of reading - identifying letters, identifying sounds associated with the letters, and reaching for meaning of the written word - are each accomplished by different parts of the brain.
Here, then, is a three-part plan that incorporates this information to guide you as you help your child learn.
- Part 1: Phonemic awareness, or learning the individual sounds that constitute a language, for example, "kuh" as the sound of "c".
- Part 2: Phonics, or the letter-sound relationships available in the language, for example, "kuh---aah---tuh" sounds out "cat".
- Part 3: Exposure to meaning of the written word through reading and being read to, for example, "kuh---aah---tuh" sounds out "cat" which is "a furry mammal that purrs".
These elements should be used as building blocks, each necessary to support the next. With phonemic awareness as the first block, a child can begin to puzzle out words in books.
With the help of a parent or sibling by his side he'll begin to have the answers to questions he will soon begin to ask.
Now is the time to point out important clues, such as how letter sounds blend, how an "e" at the end of a word changes a vowel sound from short to long, how some consonants have more than one sound.
Discuss lower and upper case letters. Point out the eighteen frequently used words best learned by sight. And remember to keep reading to your child to include exposure to meaning, the all important part 3.
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