How to Teach Your Kid to Read at Home – Preschooler Learning Strategies
In this post, we will discuss some methods and strategies using which you can effectively teach your kid to read at home and prepare the preschoolers to be ready for their future classroom curriculum.
A child’s brain at an early age is a lot different from a grown-up kid in various ways so you should use the right techniques to make them interested in what you are trying to teach them and use methods that make it easy for them to process the information.
At an early age when the brain is developing very fast, it is very wise to help your kid to learn skills like reading because it will not only be learned by them much quicker than a person with a developed brain but it also boosts up the process of their brain development.
When you spend the time with your kid to teach them the skills like reading it builds a strong connection between you and them which will help you to become the best teacher they could ever have in their whole lifetime.
Young kids are great learners and during their brain development phase, one should try to teach them the skills like reading because their brain is highly benefited by the effort they make to learn new skills. Children at an early age have a great potential to learn and they are highly curious about various things, so one should be ready to use the right methods to help them in doing this.
Although we are suggesting here to help your kid learn reading at an early age, this particular subject is highly debated by parents of different mentalities because many people believe that kids are not ready to learn such skills before they start to speak.
Surprisingly, a baby can start to learn reading from an age of three months and researches have proven that a toddler can learn both verbal and non-verbal language from the age of 3 months depending upon what their brain is absorbing from their surroundings.
Babies have a rapidly developing brain and according to the experts they are very efficient in learning new things before the age of five that’s why it is called the window of opportunity.
Three phases of teaching your kid about the language:-
a) Reading to Your Kid Frequently
Storytelling is not only something you do to entertain your kids but it also helps them to know about the language usage. Reading to your kids frequently gives your child’s brain an exposure to the language which is very necessary for them to learn it as quickly as possible.
b) Generating Responses
It does not matter whether your child is able to speak or reply but you should focus on getting a response from your kid when you are communicating with them or telling them a story.
The best way to get a response is to ask open-ended questions, though it is obvious you will not get a verbal reply from a child before a certain age, your patience can do a great work in order to make them respond.
c) Introduce them to Books Early
Most people prefer to keep the books on the shelf when they have a kid in the house with the fear that the kid may tear the book or spoil it in some way but you should make some books accessible to the kids along with their toys at an early age.
When a kid sees a book as something to play with it becomes easy for you to make them interested in the utility of the written material.
The kid’s curiosity to know about the usage of a book gives you an excellent opportunity to start the basics lessons.
d) Word Sound Associations
The conventional way of teaching focuses on teaching kids the alphabets first before they learn how to make words but when you are dealing with a preschooler your approach should be different from that.
In order to make the word sound association, you should read to your kids by pointing to the words in the books that you are speaking over and over again until their brain starts to make connections between written symbols and the pronunciation.
a) Introduction to Alphabets
When you see that the kid has developed the word awareness it is the right time to teach them about the alphabets. The alphabet song is an effec