Concentration
I had read somewhere many years ago before I had children that being a strong reader was a great foundation for overall success at school so on the realisation, that my daughter could recognise letters at such a young age, I made a decision to keep teaching her the alphabet and would eventually teach her to read at the age of 3.5. It could have happened a lot sooner but I made a commitment to make it fun and turn it into a game we would play no more than 5 mins a day.
You can teach your child to read too following my Simple 5 step formula below:
1. Start at 14 months ....Sing the ABC song and get your child to try and repeat it....Keep singing until they are able to sing it back ........(You must commit to doing this daily as a fun playful song....maybe clapping your hands on as you sing if your child prefers this.)
2. When your child can sing the ABC song....you are ready to move on to letter recognition.
Print off the Alphabet with a Capital Letter and lower case letter and a picture that represents the letter .....or just buy alphabet cards if this works better for you.
3. Start with A- G ....making sure your child recognises the capital letter and then the lower case letters. Cover the picture and ask what letter is this, to be sure the child recognises the letter.Then mention the sound which the letter makes and get your child to repeat it after you. You should spend only 10 mins a day....and can only increase it if your child requests it...Remember the whole objective is to have fun with it and make it a game...do not scold the child if they get it wrong....don't tell them off in anyway...just repeat to them what the correct one should be.
4. Repeat the steps above with letters H -P . Q - V, W - Z.......until your child can recognise all capital and lower case letters of the alphabet and can make the sounds of the letters too. YOU must ensure that you are using English phonetics and are sounding out the letters correctly.The correct sounds for English can be found here, http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics
5. Now that your child can recognise all the letters of the alphabet and their sounds.....you can introduce your child to reading by buying a book from any bookstore for beginner readers. This book must be the first level of the particular reading scheme, (you may want to check with the school that your child will be going to, which reading scheme they will be using at that school and start with that particular one.)
Begin by reading the book to your child first, and then encouraging your child to read the book after you. You child may initially use the pictures as cues for the words but will eventually come to memorise and phonetically sound out words based on the phonetic letter sounds they had learnt from you previously.
Remember to be patient and have fun, spend a small amount of time on this daily and do not increase it unless the child asks you too...the bigger objective outside of teaching them to read, is also to make learning fun...
To Your Success,
Deidre Longe
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Deidre_Longe
However if you came to this blog seeking help on earlier stages of your child's development, such as talking, go to http://whenyourchildspeaks.blogspot.com/ ,walking, go to http://babywalking-admin.blogspot.com/ , potty training go to http://howtopottytrain-admin.blogspot.com/ or getting baby to sleep through the night, go to http://howtogetbabysleepingthrothenight.blogspot.com/ .
Enjoy your reading,talking,walking, potty trained, sleeping through the night addition to your family!
