Learning To Read
What is "reading readiness"?
Reading readiness can mean lots of different things, but basically it means is your child ready to start reading? Does your child know what the letters are? Does your child know what sounds the letters make and that the letters scrunch together to form words? Does your child know that you read from the left side of the page to the right side of the page, that you go from the front of the book to the back of the book, those kind of really basic things, so that, if they sit down to read, they're there, they're ready for someone to teach them how to do it.
How can I get my child "reading-ready"?
Reading readiness is something children tend to develop naturally if you read with your child and books are a part of your life. It doesn't take a child very long to be reading-ready if you've been reading to them since they were an infant, teaching them to realize that you read from left to right and that you start at the beginning and you go to the end. Buy letter toys for your child. You can buy almost any toy out there with letters on it. You've got blocks with letters on it, you've got those little letters that you have in the bathtub that float around and stick to the walls of the tub. You've got all kinds of puzzles that have letters and all kinds of books that have A is for apple and for aardvark. If you incorporate all these things into the daily activities that you do with your child, by the time she or he is 2, 3, and 4 he or she will know the letters, the sounds and how books work, so getting the child reading-ready won't be a problem.
By what age should my child be able to read?
Kids begin to read at all different ages. A lot of people tell you, I was reading at 2 1/2, I was reading at 3. You'll have parents that are distressed if a child isn't reading well by 5. Reading is very developmental. It requires reading readiness, it requires an interest, it also requires the kid to be willing to sit down and focus on something and do something for a while. So kids are going to start to read at different ages. If you've been reading to your kid ever since he or she was a little tiny baby, they are going to start filling in words, memorizing books, by the time they are 2 1/2, 3 years old. It doesn't necessarily mean they are reading, but they have a good sense of how to read and how it works, and they are kind of interested and want to read. At the same time if your child doesn't read by the time they are 6 or 7, doesn't read well, it's often really hard to learn fluency after 6 or 7. So there's that range between 4 and 6 where most kids will begin to read.
What can I do at home to help my child learn to read?
When helping children learn to read, one of the things that I recommend that parents have at home are really simple books. You'd be amazed when you look at pictures book and the type of books that we usually have. They're difficult; there's a lot of big words, there's a lot of big concepts. You're going to sit down to read and think, "Oh, how's my child ever going to do this? They only know the basic sounds." So, there's all different kinds of phonetic readers that you can buy to help a child learn to read, where there are little tiny stories: they're not super-fascinating stories but they're broken down. Some of them will only have the short "a" sound, some of them will only have the short "o" sound. They're really nice building blocks to help kids to begin reading on their own. The other thing you can always do to help their reading is have kids read to you - read it to them and then have them read it back. You want to keep practicing. You want to help improve the smoothness with which they can read. If it seems kind of choppy, do it again; just keep going over things. Use repetition to help children learn to read, because kids love to read books over and over again. Repetition is really a great at this young age, because it helps solidify the sight of words and the sounds. There's a set of books called "Bob's Books" and the Bob books go in levels. They come in boxes, they're little tiny paperbacks, but each one is coded to a particular sound, and so again you have your short "a" book to help children learn. The first book goes something like, "Matt. Matt sat. Matt and Pat sat on Matt's hat." It's very simple and the kids can really read it themselves. The books get harder as they go along, slowly improving a child's reading. There's another set of little books called "Now I'm Reading", and they also get progressively harder. They're a little cuter at the end as the illustrations are more colorful. These books have the same sort of idea for helping your child to read. They're very phonetic readers, and they're great for kids to really just start learning.
How can I encourage a new reader to strengthen her skills?
The best thing for new readers is practice. They need to read a lot. One of the things that is really hard with new readers is that the easy books are really not very interesting, and the harder books are too hard. Keep reading to your child when they're a new reader. Don't stop reading the fun, interesting books to your child just because she's reading on her own. That's one way to zap them of their motivation to read. Read books together, go to the library together, choose new books together, go to the bookstore together. It's just practice, it's just reading a lot and doing it together, through guided reading. You read with them, and you help them track and blend words together when they need some help. Tracking is staying on the line that they are reading. You will notice that when little kids read they often skip around. When kids get older, teachers often complain when kids use their fingers to track because it does slow you down. When you become older and you become a good reader you track entirely with your eyes, but little kids often have trouble doing it. I actually never have a problem with having new readers use their finger or an index card to keep their place.
What are some "reading games" for K-second grade that can be played at home?
For little kids, if you want to play games with letter recognition and sound recognition, you can just find them, "Where's that letter? Where's that letter? Find that one!". We do with little tiny kids: here's the "Mommy A" and where's her little "Baby A", matching the uppercase and lowercase letters together so they realize that they all fit. In terms of other games, you can always play modified versions of Scrabble, modified versions of Boggle, finding really simple words and putting letters together. Those are really fun if kids are interested in doing them, and then there are reading games on the market. There is "Little Dora". You can get Dora the Explorer reading games, and I'm sure you can ones for other characters. And if kids like them and think they're fun, I think they're a great idea. I wouldn't worry too much if they didn't want to play them, but if they like them, I think they're a great idea.
