PHONICS FOR KIDS

As a parent do you realize you can teach your child to read before going to school?

 Now don’t reel in shock and horror. You can do it!

 

It can be one of the most enlightening ways you can prepare your child for school and a bonding you can both share with books that entertain and enlighten.

 

Just as your child learns to speak before school and learns to do this in the family setting learning to read should be placed in the same category.

 

Learning to read is not about making sounds from letters on a page.

 

It is about language.  It is about communication. It is about meaning.

 

Reading involves listening and interpreting the message from the text being read.

It is an active process.

 

Because learning to read is the fundamental skill needed to learn and survive in modern society enormous sums of money has been poured into reading research.

 

Research tells us it’s the teacher not the method that makes the difference.

 

Yes!  It’s the teacher and not the method!

 

Who are a child’s first teachers? Parents are of course.

 

There is not one way to teach a child to read.

 

But there is a background that is fundamental to reading success.

 

Children who come to school having learnt to read by looking at the same print over and over again and who listened to the same language used in stories over and over again experience school as a non threatening place.

 

They have linked that the squiggles on the page stand for the words we speak.

 

Children who have parents who talk to them and read to them consistently do not by and large find learning to read difficult.

 

Parents who read favorite stories over and over again to their child are teaching reading.

 

Children learn their favorite stories by heart. Have you ever seen a young child read his favorite story with the page upside down? He has learnt about reading!

 

Beginning readers in school memorize the books they are reading and call it reading.

It is all part of the process in learning to read.

 

So how do you teach your child to read?

 

Give enormous exposure to books, print, pictures, feeling, turning and ‘reading’ their own books and three stories a day. 

 

Read to them. Let them read to you.

Reading aloud to a child  at least  for 10 minutes a day, every day, gives an enormous advantage to that child.

 

Don’t let your child have a background that lacks access to books.  

Books that uplift is how a parent teaches a child to read.

 

Phonics is one of the sub-skills of learning to read and it is learned when we write. Phonics lessons can be fun and allied to the books being read.

 

We can’t write without phonics knowledge and this develops over time during  formal education. Parents who skill themselves up with phonics knowledge can support what their child learns at school.

 

Yes. You can teach your child to read and encourage them to be a super learner!

 

If you would like information about phonics (letter sound relationships) I have written an eBook outlining a systematic approach. This book outlines step by step the phonics knowledge your child needs to understand and provides downloadable activities that make learning fun.

Please go to www.superlearner.com.au to find out more.

I welcome any queries and questions you may have.