One of the greatest gifts you can bestow your child is the gift of reading. Reading is a skill that is invaluable and essential to a child's learning ability. This article offers ways in which you can help to accelerate your child's reading ability.
A good way to start your child reading is to teach them the sounds of the alphabet. Go through each letter and practice making the sounds with them. You can do this anywhere, whilst getting them ready for school, in the car or before their goodnight story are some good opportunities. Try teaching them a few letter sounds at a time, not all the 26 sounds at once and recycle them everyday.
Offer them some examples of words that match the sounds, such as 'Aa for Apple' and elicit words from them for each letter sound.
Once they have mastered the initial letters, move on to teach them 'word families'. These are words that have the same sounds. Some examples of word families include: at, an, ap and ag. As before, offer them examples and elicit words for each.
Now they can begin to practice reading three letter words such as cat, dog, bat and hat.
It is important to teach them beginning letter blends too. This is when you have two letters together to make a sound e.g. bl, pl, sl. As before, offer them examples, elicit words from them and practice regularly.
There are some words that cannot be read phonetically. These words are called sight words because they have to be known by sight. You can find lists of 'sight words' on the internet. It's a good idea to make or buy flash cards of the words and practice them regularly.
Before too long you will be able to begin reading books for beginner readers with your child. Teach them to break the longer words into their sounds to decode them using the word families and blends they have learned.
If you can make it fun for your child and be patient with them they will nurture a positive attitude to reading which will benefit them greatly.
I hope you have found these ideas useful and you enjoy teaching your child to read.
A good way to start your child reading is to teach them the sounds of the alphabet. Go through each letter and practice making the sounds with them. You can do this anywhere, whilst getting them ready for school, in the car or before their goodnight story are some good opportunities. Try teaching them a few letter sounds at a time, not all the 26 sounds at once and recycle them everyday.
Offer them some examples of words that match the sounds, such as 'Aa for Apple' and elicit words from them for each letter sound.
Once they have mastered the initial letters, move on to teach them 'word families'. These are words that have the same sounds. Some examples of word families include: at, an, ap and ag. As before, offer them examples and elicit words for each.
Now they can begin to practice reading three letter words such as cat, dog, bat and hat.
It is important to teach them beginning letter blends too. This is when you have two letters together to make a sound e.g. bl, pl, sl. As before, offer them examples, elicit words from them and practice regularly.
There are some words that cannot be read phonetically. These words are called sight words because they have to be known by sight. You can find lists of 'sight words' on the internet. It's a good idea to make or buy flash cards of the words and practice them regularly.
Before too long you will be able to begin reading books for beginner readers with your child. Teach them to break the longer words into their sounds to decode them using the word families and blends they have learned.
If you can make it fun for your child and be patient with them they will nurture a positive attitude to reading which will benefit them greatly.
I hope you have found these ideas useful and you enjoy teaching your child to read.
Source...