📚 📖📚 How to teach your child to read📚 📖📚
As a teachermama, I love that I can give my child the gift of reading.
Learning how to read is definitely something your child will learn at school but I also believe that each child has a huge capacity to learn prior to school. If you have a preschooler around 4-6 years old, you can prepare him/her with some early reading skills so that he/she is ready when school starts.
Having taught my little one the basic foundations of reading prior to school, she had a huge boost of confidence when she first started school and it helped her settle in class with ease. She is now in the top maths group and second highest reading group, and even though academics isn't the only thing that is important at school, it's still nice to know that your child is coping well with the curriculum!
As an introduction to reading, I'm sure many of the #steemitmamas and their #steemitkids already know the alphabet song. The alphabet song is great to help your child to understand that words are made out of letters (well, the English language anyways!) and there are 26 letters in the alphabet from A - Z. Another great way to introduce reading is by reading to your child as part of their bedtime routine. I am sure many of the mamas already do this naturally, but we can't underestimate the power of model reading and shared reading with our children!
So if you are already doing this, now what?? Here are some simple steps to follow:
1. Explain to your child that each alphabetical letter has a name but also has a SOUND
Go through all the SOUNDS of the alphabet and use this helpful video for yourself and your child:
Courtesy of KidsTV123
Once they are familiar with their beginning sounds, move onto some everyday games.
2. Play games to reinforce beginning sound knowledge
My favourite game to play with my kiddo is "I spy...", we love playing it when trying to pass time, like travelling in a car.
It goes something like this:
"I spy with my little eye something beginning with B" - but instead of saying the letter name B say the sound the B makes 'buh buh".
And hopefully, your child can work out words like ball, bus, bum (hehe) all starts with the B sound.
After beginning sounds are mastered, move onto...
3. Blending
Time to jump in the deep end and try to put the sounds together! Now this is tricky and I've seen many children struggle with it, so don't be so hard on yourself or your little darling if they struggle at first. Over time, they will get the hang of it!
Start with some CVC words, that's teacher lingo for Consonant - Vowel - Consonant words.
Such as:
c-a-t
b-e-d
f-i-t
m-o-p
m-u-m
These words are very basic and easy to blend together. In the beginning, SHOW them how it's done, say something like:
"I am going to SOUND the letters of this word out. C-A-T. C-A-T. Can you tell what word it is?"
Over time, guide your child so that they try to sound the word out themselves. Give them lots of praise for their effort!
If you're looking for some CVC words to start, here are some free printable ones via The Measured Mum.
Well, I've really loved sharing a few tips on how to kickstart your child's reading journey! As I'm writing this, I feel my passionate writing juice flowing! Yay!
If you would like more advice in any area of education (primary/elementary is my specialty) or would like me to post more about how to teach your child to read, spell, etc. Please upvote, follow and comment below for some topics - I'd love to post more for you!
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Ooohhh this is nice, thanks for sharing this! My little girl is 3 and I would really love to try and introduce some fun and basic learning on alphabets. She's only known how to sing the song so perhaps it's a good time to slowly get her interested in the words. I shall resteem this! 😊
Thanks @alimamastory ! Let me know how she goes and if there's anything I can do to help :)
Thank you for sharing these great tips with us to get our preschoolers ready for school! I also like preparing my children ahead of time. By the time each of them starts Kindergarten they can read and it does make it easier for them!
Thanks @crosheille ! How old are your kiddos?
You’re welcome! 😊 Mine are 8, 6, 5, 2 and 5 weeks! How about yours?
Oh my goodness @crosheille ! You're a super mum. Mine are 6 years and the other is 6 months and I already find it hard!! How do you do it?!
Haaa!! Thank you! I don’t always feel that way. Plan, schedule and more planning. I am literally planning my day in my head and figuring out how to fit it all in. I have a basic schedule I go by and that really helps. Then my older children help out with the younger ones. 😊
Awww you have a newbie too! 😍
Yay this is great! I'll definitely try this with my Little Miss and Little Monster! 😍
Let me know how you go @arrliinn ! I've done a follow-up post about reading sight words :)
This is very interesting way to teach little kids.
Great post :)
Thanks @manisha.jain9! I've done a follow-up post about reading sight words if you want to check it out :)
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Thank you so much @steemitmamas ! Already resteemed :) And thank you for curating the education channel!
Ooh thank you for sharing this @steemymama. My boy has been showing some interests in learning spellings and also which letters are for which words. He can spell some words but he can't really match the spelling of the words with the object itself. So I think he can't read yet. I am a tutor but I have not much idea how to get around elementary learning. He learns mostly from YouTube I guess and I only enhanced it by asking him some questions like what letter js this for, how to spell 'key'that sort of questions. This would be of great help, thank you!!!
Thank you so much @happycrazycon ! I'll do a post on sight words to follow up that might be useful to you :)
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Thanks for sharing. I'll try this out with my nephew. He's 2 and a bit too over protected by my brother.
Cool! How old are your sons @ireenchew ?
They're 13 & 9. Both very much like their dad. All into devices & technology. Sadly, none followed my love for books. Though I have a library of books it's more like display 🙄
Cool @steemymama there is a #steemiteducation tag you can use for informative educational posts like this. You should check it out :)
I am also a teachermama. I teach Kindergarten <3
Thank you @mumma-monza ! I will do :) That's cool that you teach Kindy, where abouts do you teach? :)
I teach at an Internation Academy in Cambodia :) I am on summer break at the moment.
Thanks so much @steemiteducation for the resteem! I've now written a follow-up (part 2) post about reading sight words ;)