Helping Your Child Learn to Read

Pre-Reading

For those who are dealing with being new mothers - maybe you did not already know, that there are a lot of learning steps that normally precede reading in young children. You can help your child learn to read at home. Most of you experienced this as young children but many adults have forgotten all about their early years by the time they reach adulthood.

Reading to children does help them, but there is more than one factor involved. If you read aloud to your child/ren without them being able to see the page, it will stimulate them but will not provide the maximum in pre-reading benefits. So, the traditional behavior of having a child in your lap with the book open where you can both see it clearly is a great way to help your child. This is often built into the design of story books for young children. Anything with good pictures and letters easy for your child to see can help with learning to read.

Give your child time to look at the pictures and any images of the letters and numbers. It may or may not be obvious to you what your child is learning from a given behavior. Try to be patient about it.

Once 2 or 3 years old, when reading to children encouraging a child to repeat written words while pointing them out will get them on track. The pace of the school is system is set to the most common norms - the median of entire body of students. This is the case because it really does work for most of the students, including your child.

Your child may progress more quickly or more slowly than that 'norm' this is okay however, it will be best for your child if you provide adjustments. If your child learns reading early, you need to tell the school up front and get the child into a reading group a grade or two ahead of the rest of their lessons.

If your teacher tells you during a first parent-teacher conference that your child is lagging behind in reading there are a few helpful steps you can take. Make sure the child's vision is okay. Ask the teacher for more details. If you stopped reading to your child due to work or a new baby, try to resume reading aloud to your child for at least 15 minutes per day. If your child has had a big change in stress, taking care of that could clear up a learning delay. You may just need to help the child with homework or make them turn off the TV when doing their homework. Check all of that before thinking your child may be a slow learner.

If, even with a little extra care an attention your child still has a problem with reading a year later, then you may need to delve into the matter more deeply. It still could be a teacher-student bad match, but your child could be either on the slow end of normal or suffering from a learning disability. It will help if you can figure out which because that effects what the right thing to do is going to be in many future cases in relation to your child's education.

Reading & Reading to Your Children

Once your child starts to become a reader, you should still read aloud to your child. If your child is interested and willing, you need to listen to your child read aloud. You may love this or find it tedious or both depending on the moment. It will give you a chance to correct and to encourage your child. Sometimes it will just make you happy and proud of your child.

Reading to your children is an activity that can continue right into Middle School. If your family likes this when the child is even more mature then just accept that the interest is now a real adult interest - your child and you may like live poetry readings or other live readings by auth