Easy reading by phonics.
What is a good age for kids to start reading? Isn't it too early to pressurise my kids into reading? As a mother of 2 young kids, I was in a quest for good ways for child developement. Attended several different workshops and courses and realised...No, it is never too early. And no again, you never pressurise them.
Have you observed that, kids love to learn. Yes, they do. Give them the right information, in the right way, at the right time and they will be all ears. Give them the same toy everyday and they loose interest. But, if you give them a new toy everyday...you know what I mean. Once they have learned everything there is to learn, about a toy, they move on. This shows, they love to learn, more than they love to play.
The right approach to reading is play way. But what way? You don't wake up one day and say, oh my son is 1 1/2 yr old, I have to start teaching him alphabets. You introduce alphabets to him everyday, naturally. It is not natural to look at an alphabet and say this is D. Start with the phonics first, e.g while talking about a dog you say D-OG. D-OG starts with D (duh). This develops the understanding of phonics. Do this all the time with words. But never overdo it. Stop before you child is bored.
After you do this for a good 6 mo., you move on to introducing the alphabets. The letters preferably should be in the form of flashcards of lower-case alphabets. In most books that we read, letters are in the lowercase. The sentence starts with an upper-case, and the rest of it is in lowercase letters. Therefore, as a natural progression the child needs to be introduced to lowercase letters and their sounds(phonics), first. e.g. b says buh, c says kuh. The vowels sound like they do, in three letter words. For more information on phonics and interactive site for young kids http://www.starfall.com/. This is my favourite site and my kids have learnt a lot here, independently.
Once your child is fairly comfortable with phonics the next step is to use alphabet flashcards to have a game of building 3 letter words. Use plain flashcards, and not the ones with flashy colors and graphics. Plain words, in normal font(Arial), in large size(18), in color red. Choose one vowel,e.g. a says aa as in apple and t says tuh. Now keep 'at' constant, and add different letters in the first position, to build different words...bat, cat, sat, rat, fat. This tells the child the logic behind building words. Play with this method. Now, keep the first 2 letters the same and change the last. bat, bad, ban, bag etc. Your child will love this. See the twinkle in his eyes when he sees how it is actually done and feels the control over reading. More information about making your own flashcards on my next blog. Before, you move to this step, look for signs that your child is ready for it. Never go ahead of your child's capacity, he will simply loose interest and never want to do it.
I used this method with my son, and he was reading phonetic words by 3 yrs. and he could spell most long phonetic words too. Do it when your child and you are in a good mood. Do not approach this as teaching your child. Just enjoy sharing what you know, with him.
Let me know if you find this information helpul. If you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it, I will share more of my experiences. I will be updating new blogs from time-to-time. See you later...
Have you observed that, kids love to learn. Yes, they do. Give them the right information, in the right way, at the right time and they will be all ears. Give them the same toy everyday and they loose interest. But, if you give them a new toy everyday...you know what I mean. Once they have learned everything there is to learn, about a toy, they move on. This shows, they love to learn, more than they love to play.
The right approach to reading is play way. But what way? You don't wake up one day and say, oh my son is 1 1/2 yr old, I have to start teaching him alphabets. You introduce alphabets to him everyday, naturally. It is not natural to look at an alphabet and say this is D. Start with the phonics first, e.g while talking about a dog you say D-OG. D-OG starts with D (duh). This develops the understanding of phonics. Do this all the time with words. But never overdo it. Stop before you child is bored.
After you do this for a good 6 mo., you move on to introducing the alphabets. The letters preferably should be in the form of flashcards of lower-case alphabets. In most books that we read, letters are in the lowercase. The sentence starts with an upper-case, and the rest of it is in lowercase letters. Therefore, as a natural progression the child needs to be introduced to lowercase letters and their sounds(phonics), first. e.g. b says buh, c says kuh. The vowels sound like they do, in three letter words. For more information on phonics and interactive site for young kids http://www.starfall.com/. This is my favourite site and my kids have learnt a lot here, independently.
Once your child is fairly comfortable with phonics the next step is to use alphabet flashcards to have a game of building 3 letter words. Use plain flashcards, and not the ones with flashy colors and graphics. Plain words, in normal font(Arial), in large size(18), in color red. Choose one vowel,e.g. a says aa as in apple and t says tuh. Now keep 'at' constant, and add different letters in the first position, to build different words...bat, cat, sat, rat, fat. This tells the child the logic behind building words. Play with this method. Now, keep the first 2 letters the same and change the last. bat, bad, ban, bag etc. Your child will love this. See the twinkle in his eyes when he sees how it is actually done and feels the control over reading. More information about making your own flashcards on my next blog. Before, you move to this step, look for signs that your child is ready for it. Never go ahead of your child's capacity, he will simply loose interest and never want to do it.
I used this method with my son, and he was reading phonetic words by 3 yrs. and he could spell most long phonetic words too. Do it when your child and you are in a good mood. Do not approach this as teaching your child. Just enjoy sharing what you know, with him.
Let me know if you find this information helpul. If you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it, I will share more of my experiences. I will be updating new blogs from time-to-time. See you later...
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