If you want to give your child a leg up in their education, one of the best things you can do is help them develop strong early reading skills. Here are five tips to get you started:
One – Use Flashcards With Text and Pictures
Help your child improve their early reading skills by using picture and word flashcards together. By linking pictures with the words that represent them, your child will begin to understand that words have meaning beyond just the shapes they see on a page.
Two – Make Reading a Family Event
It can be easy for parents to forget that their children need to be read to on a regular basis by a live person with all the new toys on the market these days that will read to your children for you.
Not only should you make a point to read to your child every day, but you should also get your whole family involved in the process. Taking a family outing to the library is a great way to get your child excited about reading. You can also start a family book club where everyone reads the same book and then discusses it together.
Three – Start Early Teaching Them to Write
Even though your children may not yet understand the purpose of letters, it’s never too early to start teaching them their alphabet. Children love learning to write their names, so teaching them to print early is a great way to enhance their reading skills. By starting to familiarize them with the shapes and sounds of letters, you can help them begin to develop the skills they need for reading and writing.
You can start by helping them recognize the letters in their name. Even if they don’t understand the full concept of the letters, if you work with them long enough, they can easily remember that certain letters mean their name. Over time, they will begin to develop their writing skills on their own.
Many children will start trying to write before they understand what letters are. If you notice your child doing this, it’s a good sign that he or she is ready to start learning to write their name.
Four – Teach Your Child Phonics
One of the biggest mistakes that parents and teachers make is failing to teach children phonics. Phonics is a simple process of teaching children the sounds that letters and letter combinations make.
By teaching children the sounds of letters, they will be able to sound out words as they read. This will help them throughout their education.
Five – Be Consistent
Consistency is key when it comes to increasing your child’s early reading skills. Children need repetition to solidify the sounds of words and letters in their heads, as well as the concepts that words create.
By making sure that you make reading a part of their daily life, you are helping to reinforce these concepts in your child’s mind, and they will be able to understand more difficult concepts before their peers.
The most important thing to remember if you want to increase your child’s early reading skills is to make the reading process fun. If your child sees that you enjoy reading, both to them and to yourself, they will take a greater interest in the process and learn much more quickly.
