One of the best tips on how to help your child learn to read is to start reading with your child early.
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How to Help Your Child Learn to Read
One of the best tips on how to help your child learn to read is to start reading with your child early.
Listening to a story that’s read aloud helps to motivate kids to read. As parents read with full-on facial and vocal expressions, the fun and excitement can impact a child’s desire to learn independently.
Turn the tables as they age, and let them read aloud to you. If there’s a word they don’t know, help them by saying it aloud and asking them to repeat it. You want to make sure they hear the sound of the word. Then, get back to the story, so they develop a habit of finishing the reading assignment. Keep an eye out for the word again and see if they recognize it. If they still have trouble, offer to help. Reading together is an excellent method of building a child’s confidence while creating shared memories connected to reading.
Even before a child learns to read, they already recognize the sound of many words. Children learn to master reading skills in school by sounding out the alphabet letters. As kids become proficient with the sounds of letters, they start matching familiar pictures to the letters. The next step is to put the letters together to form words so they can begin to read.
Education resources
Home Reading Routines
Most children learn to read at their own pace. There’s no need to push; besides, it only causes frustration for both readers. Reading with your child can help make reading enjoyable and more comfortable to learn for them. After reading a story, talk with your child and ask about the difficult words. A child needs to feel at ease, not fearful about coming to a parent and asking for help.
Parents need to encourage a child’s love of reading and praise them for doing a great job. Children relate what they know to what they read. Keep the reading material at the child’s understanding level. Advance slowly as the child’s reading ability progresses.
- Make time to read a book together.
- Ask about their favorite story and leave the book in the child’s room so they can enjoy it.
- Make learning new vocabulary like a game of discovery.
- Be a good reader.
When do kids learn to read? Most kids enjoy reading time with their parents. It’s a chance for kids to learn how to pronounce words and discover new ones in a safe environment. Young readers’ attitude about reading reflects on their early year of experiences with reading. In most cases, good readers not only do well in school and they become lifelong readers.
Coming of Age
Sometimes parents get more excited about teaching kids to read than kids are about learning to read. Parents must allow the child to be a kid and enjoy listening to mom or dad reading aloud. When do kids learn to read? Reading age is when they start asking questions about the books.
Children are naturally curious about books sitting around the house. It’s a natural occurrence in most homes for a child to find reading material and became browsing through the pages. The timing is perfect to begin conversations about the book and its story with your child.
Talking about books can help to motivate the child’s interest in reading:
- Talk about the cover – ask them to guess the storyline.
- Ask what they think will happen at a dramatic point in the story – it’s a sign of listening skills.
- Find out their favorite character and why – children usually identify with emotions.
The reason for all the questions is so a parent can understand the child’s comprehension level. If a child can’t connect to the story, it will not make sense, nor will it be fun. You know your child better than anyone. Take the time to explain the words so the child can relate to the story. These are the foundations for building your child’s understanding of what they are reading. Right now, it’s a learning process with you; one day, they will do it on their own.
Role Models
Parents are role models when it comes to developing child reading habits. Remember, children learn by example and value a parent’s actions greatly. Kids have an intuitive learning trait. They are curious about how parents spend home time and why they respond to different situations the way they do.
Learning to read is no different from a child learning to talk. The child learns by hearing a parent’s voice, and they make a good attempt at mimicking parents.
Parents need to re-enforce good reading habits:
- Children need to see their parents reading each day.
- Read a child’s book together.
- Make a favorite treat by teaching the child how to read a cookbook.
- Enjoy an adventure filled with new words and pictures.
- Share what you are reading with the child.
- Build a bond through a common interest in reading material.
Parents must make an effort to read with their children. Why is reading important for children? It’s been said that early reading experiences set a child’s learning abilities and school perceptions.
- Preschoolers build the foundations of understanding and learning through a parent’s actions.
- Teenagers watch and listen.
Books, Books, and More Books
At about five, children start to show personal interest in activities and subjects. It’s an excellent time to begin introducing different reading materials. Young readers tend to respond to interactive reading, making learning to read more fun.
Here are some younger reading age selections:
- Alphabet Books
- Song Books
- Pictures Books
As kids get older, parents can talk about the different genres. For most kids, it’s an opportunity to connect and widen their interests in reading. It also helps parents learn more about how well their kids read and what their kids enjoy reading.
Next set of reading combinations:
- Fantasy – make-believe, doesn’t happen in real life but makes for good reading.
- Fiction – a novel based on a made-up story, but the situation could happen in real life.
- Nonfiction – real stories about people, places, animals, and historical and scientific events.
Encourage your children to read different books that offer the reader a mix of reasons for reading. A good book has been known to inspire readers of all ages to explore.
Tips on picking reading materials:
- Infrequent readers may be bored with traditional reading material. New books can improve their outlook and attitude about reading.
- Expanding vocabulary – every book has something new to learn, from words, different languages, or favorite phrases.
- Genres of different concepts like poetry or literature are examples of a writer’s experiences or imagination.
- Educational books can help improve reading skills and build a child’s confidence.
Reading Lessons at School
Why is reading important for children? Reading helps to build learning skills that are very important to a child’s success in school. Children who learn to enjoy reading do well in school. Child reading skills are essential in just everything a child learns in school. Reading to children is generally a part of the daily classroom lessons. A good portion of early school lessons focuses on teaching kids to read.
From the start of a child’s education, teachers concentrate on each of these skills when reading to children. When kids understand the relationship between letters and words, it makes learning to read more meaningful. A child reading a book or listening to a classroom lesson must make sense of it all to hold their attention.
Valuable reading skills include:
- Comprehension – understand what they are reading.
- Fluency – read words smoothly as they easily move to the next one.
- Vocabulary – recognize the written word.
- Communications – ability to share the meaning of spoken words.
Good reading comprehension will help kids read more fluently. Vocabulary grows as children read and comprehend the words being read. Reading helps kids recognize the proper word order. And, of course, effective communication leads to better writing (composition) capabilities, which is a foundation for reading. As children use these learning skills, their communication skills begin to improve.
