The Best Early Reading Strategies for Children and Parents

Has your child been displaying a growing curiosity in reading? Would you like to learn what the best early reading strategies are in order to give him or her a head start on their education? Here is an outline of the most effective and simplest early reading approaches that you can apply to help your little one begin building the basic foundation he needs to have to get started reading, providing them with a jump-start on their education and development.

Follow Along With Your Finger

Among the very best early reading techniques that you can apply with your child is to read together with them and as you repeat the words and phrases, follow along with your finger. When children initially start having an interest in learning how to read, they don't realize that those crazy looking squiggles that are on the pages in reality indicate anything. Also, this teaches kids the concept that we read from left to right.

When you follow along with the words on the pages as you read, perhaps even pausing a moment to sound out a word or two as you go along, this will aid in your child better grasping the notion of the realization that the markings that appear on the pages of the book actually in fact represent what is being read aloud.

Letter Recognition

If your child does not know the alphabet yet, he will need to learn it before he learns how to read. A great way of teaching the alphabet is by singing it. When singing, be sure to sing nice and slow, really enunciating each letter. Once your child has become acquainted with the letters of the alphabet, then you can make this approach even more beneficial by asking him if he can identify any of the letters that are on the page. As he points out the letters that he recognizes, be certain that you sound them out, and repeat them together with their companions in whichever word is in question.

Connecting Words With Pictures

An additional excellent early reading tactic is helping your child connect words with their picture counterparts. Children usually have a hard time comprehending that words indeed represent things, so, when you reinforce the two together in their minds, you will help them to recognize that the word and the picture are actually one and the same.

Flashcards

There are a number of flashcards on the market that you can easily buy that will help your little one when it comes to identifying words and pictures. Think about everything that you might have come across in regard to "C stands for Cat." Besides the memorizing skills that a child must undergo when it comes to remembering all of the many shapes and sounds of letters, it's essential to keep in mind that reading comprehension is a vital aspect of the reading process also.

Asking Questions

One of the best early reading strategies is to help establish your children's reading appreciation. You can accomplish this by reading a portion of their most favorite story, and then asking them questions which will get them involved in the story.

As your child begins to develops his or her ability to answer more questions about the portion of text in question, read longer sections of the story before stopping. Start increasing the amount that you read little by little before you ask your child a lot of questions about the book, until you're able to read the entire story and your child can still easily remember the parts of the story that correlate to the questions that you ask.

Be Consistent

The most important early reading tactic that parents can remember is to frequently read to their children on a regular basis. The more that you read to your child, the more words that she will begin to understand, and the more of an interest she will take in the reading process. It is strongly encouraged that you spend at least 15 minutes per day reading to your kids - and more is always better when it comes to instilling a love of books in your child's heart.

Bonnie Lim is the founder of A Kid Place. Check out their blog at blog.akidplace.com as well as their online store at www.akidplace.com.

Determining Your Child’s Potential to Begin Reading At an Early Age

Do you feel that your child is ready to begin reading? Children that get an early start with reading have a higher potential to excel in school, and a higher likelihood of completing college, compared to kids whom learn how to read when they are a little older. The following strategies can help you determine your child's early reading potential as well as his or her readiness:

Does Your Child Pretend that She or He is Reading?

Once children have actually gotten to the age that they are able to start reading on their own, they will first usually make believe that they are reading their picture storybooks. This will notably be the case in cases where you often read together.

Usually kids whom are ready to begin establishing early reading skills will sit down with a book and with their little finger, follow the words in a book, saying the story out loud. Of course, except in cases where it’s a story that they are very well acquainted with, what they will be saying will not match up with what is really displayed. This is however an excellent sign in children that they are capable of learning letters and will be able to learn how to put words together.

Recognizing Letters

Another very good tactic in assessing if your child is able to start building his reading skills is by if he has a tendency to identify letters of the alphabet by himself without any help from anyone.

Young children will usually point out letters that they are familiar with in their daily lives once they begin to understand the notion of letters and words – such as on street signs, on their food packages, in store windows, in magazines and everywhere else that they recognize them. Once your daughter or son is at this point, it is a great idea to encourage them in sounding out the letters they see phonetically. This will make it possible for them to further build their reading capabilities.

Additional Signs to Look For

Some other indicators to be on the lookout for to determine if your son or daughter is starting to develop the necessary skills to read are whether or not they understand just how a book actually works. Do they realize that if a book is upside-down that it needs to be flipped over so that they can read it? Do they realize that we read from left to right?

If he recognizes that you turn pages from front to back, and that the story is over once you close the book, odds are that he is starting to cultivate early reading skills, which you can build upon with ease.

Yet another excellent way to determine if the reading skills of your son or daughter are evolving is if he or she pretends to write. A great number of children will oftentimes pretend to write the letters in their own names before they are actually capable of forming the letters correctly.

One more matter that should be considered when evaluating your child's reading potential is his ability to pay attention. A young child that isn’t able to remain seated all the way through the complete reading of his most favorite story is most likely not quite prepared to start reading.

On the flip side, if you find that your child continuously requests that you read the story over again any time you wrap up his most favorite story, this is another great indication that he is prepared to learn how to read on his own.

Remember, every child is unique. If your child is simply not ready to begin reading on his own at an early age, don’t push it. If you do so, the chances of that backfiring on you are very high.

Bonnie Lim is the founder of A Kid Place. Check out their blog at blog.akidplace.com as well as their online store at www.akidplace.com.