How to help your child learn how to read

29 March 2016
 Categories: , Blog

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Teaching your child how to read is one of the most important steps of all child care. It creates a vocabulary for your child that they will have to use throughout their entire life and is also an absolutely necessary skill in order to succeed in school. You as a parent have a responsibility to help your child with their learning process, as children that get help from home should learn faster than children that only get to read in school. In order to help your child to read, there are a few things you should think about. 

Read to your child

Reading to your child is something you should start with when the child is an infant, as this also helps with teaching the child how to speak. At this age, read books that have interesting textures or colourful pictures to stimulate your child's interest in the object itself while they also get to hear your voice. As the child grows older, keep reading books with pictures that you can look at together. When the child has started school, you should be able to read them shorter stories with few pictures, where the text itself is interesting enough to keep the child's interest; books such as rhyming books or fairytales.

Ask them questions

While you're reading to your child, or if you are helping them read, remember to ask questions about the content. It doesn't have to be complicated questions; you just need to make sure that your child actually understands what they are reading. If there's a book with pictures in it, you can use the pictures as a basis for your questions. Ask your child what scene or what character that is being portrayed. You can also ask about the character's personality or choices to make it a lesson in moral as well. Just remember to keep it easy going and fun. It's better to have a genuine conversation with your child than to interrogate them.

Incorporate writing into everyday life

Incorporating letters and words into the child's everyday environment can also help them grasp the concept of reading. Have your child's name painted over their bed and put the names of the different rooms in your house on the doors. As the child gets older, you can also mark different objects in your house with names, such as lamp, chair, and sofa. The objective is to get your child to realise that the names they know for things can be translated into writing. It also exposes your child to easy reading experiences that they might not think of as reading, but will help them later when it comes to remembering letters and words.