Raising A Reader

I was asked not long ago by a colleague what I did to help my kids learn to read. Having raised a child with Dyslexia (a disorder which makes learning to read difficult) this is a bit of a loaded question but without getting into too much detail, here is some of what I shared with her.

When children are babies and toddlers I think that we all do pretty much the same instinctual things like talking baby talk, singing the ABC song and reading them stories. Once they turn three is generally when I like to start pushing them to recognize their alphabet and learn phonetics (the sounds that the letters make). Rather than drill your child with flashcards, which often isn’t much fun for either of you, turn the learning into a game. You can use flash cards to do a memory game, play bingo with them, use playdough to make the letters, draw the letters in sand or even rice! There are so many new toys, etc. for teaching the alphabet but one of my favourites is ABC magnets and a magnet board. I kept track of my child’s progress with a chart, you can turn this into a reward chart (see my blog on 'Give me some Motivation') and once your child has learned to identify each letter and what sound it makes then you can reward them and go onto the next letter.

A great way to teach your child without them becoming frustrated, especially if they are very young or are struggling with a learning disability is through the use of errorless learning. This is when you give your child the answer and they repeat it. For example, with 3 letters in front of them, AB&C you would point to the letter A and say “show me the A” and then they’d point to it. Once they can identify all the letters of the alphabet without you pointing to it (you’ll point to it slower to give them a chance to point to it before you) then you can go onto the letter sounds. With one letter at a time you’ll say “Aaa, what does the letter A sound like?” And have them repeat the sound until they know it on their own. After that, with AB&C (or whatever letters) in front of them, you’ll say “A sounds like Ahh, show me the one that sounds like Ahh” and after that step you can stop telling them the answer and just point to it or put it in the middle until they are able to do it all on their own. This process may take your child a week or two, or it may take them a month or two. Don’t push them too hard, too fast, as you don’t want to frustrate them and you want them to retain what they’ve learned make it fun and reward them!

Once you’re child knows their alphabet and sounds you can begin with some easy phonics books and computer games. I personally like www.starfall.com and www.raz-kids.com and www.tumblebooks.com which you can access for free through the Halifax Library at http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/home_tumblebooks.asp

It’s important at this stage to read a lot to them and have them follow along. If your child is struggling with reading, don’t stop reading to them because you think they’re too old, keep reading to them. I found that my son was unable to read the chapter books his friends were reading but he still wanted to be able to talk about what was happening with Harry Potter, etc. so I read these books to him every night. Find books that interest your child (I bought comics for my son and found websites that interested him). Take them to the library to check out different books every week.

Please note that if your child does have a reading or other disability, then pushing them to learn phonics may not make sense for them. Phonetics doesn’t come naturally to some people, like my son; he had to teach himself to read whole words which is basically memorization, which must be extremely frustrating for a child. Some things we did to help him learn to read fluently was to skip over words that didn’t make sense and then come back to them and see if he could fill it in after. For example if he didn’t know the word ‘bounce’ in the following sentence, he’d skip it and continue reading and by the end of the sentence he would probably know what it was through process of elimination. “Can you bounce the ball to the net?” We also utilized reading software and games on the computer which read to him and got him a tutor. Having a tutor helped to decrease our frustration with his lack of progress and he really enjoyed getting the special attention. Something else that really helped my son’s reading and spelling and may surprise you is online chatting and texting! Although kids use some acronyms, for the most part, they type out full words and my son was forced to learn to spell, at least well enough that his friends can understand him!