Getting a child to read is a huge milestone to achieve in life, but that of their parents as well. Though it is the task of kgs school and primary to do so, the parents too are equally involved if not more.
This is something that all the good schools in Dubai are very good at. Let us look at what are the steps that can be taken with the intention of teaching a child to read.
How to Help Your Child to Read?
1. Familiarize Your Child with Alphabets
This is obviously the fundamental step to take in, getting a toddler to take the first few steps towards learning. It makes great sense to sing the child in question an alphabet song that goes-A for apple, B for bat and C for cat.
This will help the child memorize the names of the letters, but they should also be able to recognize them individually.
A little game that one could play with then would involve making a number of flashcards with the letters written on them in upper and lower case. These cards could be strewn on the floor and the child was told to identify and pick up each of the letters called out loud. Make them say the names of the letters aloud to ensure that they get the sounds just right.
Next, they can be taught to speak out short words starting with the letters they have managed to identify. You can take the help of flashcards for this too.
The idea is to write down these short words on the flashcards and then hide the word with one’s hand, at first revealing the first letter of the word whose sound the child can identify. This can be followed by revealing the second letter and then the third letter teaching the child to identify the sound of the whole word.
Show the child in the question how to trace every letter with their finger, so that they are sure that they recognize the letter that you speak out loud to them.
2. Read Books with Pictures
After the child in question has become reasonably adept at reading out the letters and recognizing some simple words, it’s time to teach them with the help of a simple book with pictures accompanying the words.
At first, hide the picture completely and show just the first letter of the word and then reveal the rest of the letters one by one till the child recognizes the word and says it out in full. Now’s the time to reveal the picture, so that the child associates the word with it.
3. Read Bedtime Stories Together
You may have been reading bedtime stories to your child from the time when they were not able to read themselves, but now you can read it together with your child, now that your child has some idea about how to do it.
Your child’s interest in the book will be much more heightened now that he/she will be able to understand it better. This will lead them to get better and better at the business of reading.
Why Reading is an Important Milestone in a Child’s Life?
The discovery of reading and writing is probably the greatest discovery of mankind after the invention of fire.
The earliest way of reading anything was by the little ones trying to make sense of paintings that depicted daily life on the walls of caves that people dwelled in those days. With time writing evolved in the shape of pictographic scripts that could be easily understood because they were so visual.
With time reading and writing became synonymous with education and the ability to improve one’s situation in life. That is why the necessity of sending children to school to read and write arose.
Every child had to excel at the 3 Rs of education- reading, writing and arithmetic. Fortunately, most schools these days deploy the best pedagogical techniques to ensure that all children are able to not just learn to read and write quite fast, but also to develop in a holistic manner.
In particular, the Montessori nursery and play-way methods of teaching are known to be quite effective in providing the basic skills of reading and writing to children.
It, therefore, makes eminent sense to send one’s children to the very best nursery school, so that they get the hang of reading and writing at the earliest. The times that we live in are driven by one’s understanding of technology and that requires a sound education to be received by all.
The very foundation of this sound education is the ability to read and write. In fact, any disability of this sort in any child needs to be recognized and dealt with in the right manner.
Conclusion
While it is important that kg school play their role in initiating children into the world of reading and writing, the parents of the children in question have a very important role to play as well.
They are intimately clued into their children’s nature and disposition and would be in a great position to aid their progression towards mastering the nuances of reading and writing.
Parents and teachers at school together play the greatest role anybody will ever play- that of teaching a small child the great skill of reading and writing.
All the progress that mankind has made since their hunter-gatherer days has been on account of learning to read and write. Everything from automobiles and trains to rockets and computers stems from the basic ability to read and write.
Even in the age of computers, media apps, the internet and the metaverse, everything begins with the ability to read and write. The steps described in this article are a great way to help little ones do just that. Helping toddlers master reading is the very first great step to their evolution and growth.
