Teach Your Baby to Read

It may sound crazy, but it is possible to teach young children to read. Fostering a love of reading from a young age is the best gift you can give a child for life. Children who develop a love of reading will generally perform better in all areas of education. It’s not that hard to nurture.

Parents need to tap into the intrinsic love of learning that young children possess. Children also thrive on the interaction that takes place with adults in their lives and, through reading, this contact is fostered.

There are plenty of books and websites available to support parents in teaching reading or parents can simply take some common-sense approaches.

Babies as young as six months can become excited by stories read to them. They love to interact with the book, pointing to the pictures and showing excitement or surprise on their faces as the story unfolds.

As the child grows, he or she will be exposed to an environment of language (and numbers) in shopping centres, on billboards and in educational institutions of course. Why not start this recognition of words by actively engaging children with this environmental stimulus?

Learning language is developmental, of course, and parents will be able to determine when children are ready to learn.

Nevertheless, establishing a routine relating to reading is essential for the child’s development. As part of the routine at night, reading a book or two to children is vital. It is especially important for men to read to their children too; it is not just a woman’s domain. This can be a valuable way for parents to connect with their children after separation caused by work or school. Reading by fathers will also set good role modelling behaviour for young boys.

Before embarking on a new book or reading activity, teachers will often ask children to identify their prior knowledge on the topic and to predict what the story will be about. By linking the reading to something the child already knows, it will assist him or her to make the connections and add to the prior knowledge.

When children predict what might happen in the story, they are then focussed in order to determine whether or not their predictions were accurate. Obviously, correct projections are neither here nor there; the concentration is what matters. Predicting is not restricted to the time before reading either; children can be asked to periodically predict what might happen next.

This maintains engagement and interest in the storyline. As adults we consider our prior knowledge and make predictions of the texts we read but children need to be taught these skills.

It is equally important for parents to check for understanding during and after the reading process. Children should be quizzed about specific information from the book along the way and upon completion.

And, whilst it is essential to check for recall of facts from the novel or short story, parents might also consider asking questions about the characters, the images formed in the child’s mind or even higher order questions about the author’s intentions in choosing particular words, possible reasons for using various techniques or for leaving a cliff hanger at the end of each chapter. Children should also be asked what they liked or disliked about the story or if they could relate to any of the characters depicted.

When listening to children reading, parents can support their youngsters by using the 3 P’s of reading. The three P’s are Pause, Prompt and Praise. Parents should pause to allow the child time to work out the tricky word and then prompt the child by suggesting how he or she could perhaps work out the word. Finally, parents should use praise to recognise the problem-solving behaviour used by the child to determine the correct word. Praise can be as simple as a nod of the head or a smile; it doesn’t need to be over the top. If the child cannot work out the word, then it can be given to the child in order to keep the reading process moving along.

Local libraries have wonderful programs for younger children through to adolescents, encouraging reading and interactions with books and other reading media. Regular visits to the local library allow children to read numerous books of their own choosing. However, some children may need guidance in choosing more challenging books as their reading ability improves. A love of reading is not limited to the size of one’s wallet, thankfully.

But parents might think, “I’m too busy to do all this.” Grandparents can play a most valuable part in teaching children to read. Their patience and time provide vital support to busy families in which one or both parents work and who are often time poor.

Don’t discount the reading involved in those video game guides either (often referred to as “strategy guides”). It doesn’t really matter what children are reading and these books offer some surprisingly high-level vocabulary. Children are exposed to words like vermillion, façade, embargo, telepathy, hysteria, palette and so on, through the Pokémon series, for instance. The games themselves offer the children an avenue to communicate face to face with their siblings or friends using a common language that can in fact be quite foreign to their parents. Reading, learning and communicating from computer games; who would have thought it?

Parents must be reading role models too. Children need to see parents reading daily, whether this is the newspaper, a magazine, online information or a good book read for general relaxation or at night before retiring to bed.

Children who are avid readers and who can read for understanding as well as enjoyment will perform well across the curriculum at school. Not only will they succeed in English and the Humanities subjects (History, Geography, Civics, Economics and the like); they will also do well in other subjects such as Mathematics, Science, and Technological pursuits. Reading is an essential component of everyday life and all academic endeavours.

Clearly, the encouragement of reading is so important for young children and it is never too late or too early to start. Parents and grandparents play a pivotal role in stimulating a love of reading in their children and grandchildren well before they enter the school gates.

Then again, by the very fact of your reading this, perhaps this is preaching to the converted, to those who already recognise the value of reading…