Raising a Reader

Your child has familiarised herself with your voice since she was in the womb. She also comes equipped with the capacity to learn language. Reading is one of the first skills that a child should be equipped with. A great way to start teaching reading is from birth. Read to your child while she's in her crib and let her hold books as soon as she can. A torn book is a small price to pay for literacy. Read picture books and point at pictures in the book while you do so. Switch to books with texts and read aloud while your child sits on your lap, following with her eyes. 

If you've been doing read-aloud sessions with your child since she could stare at a page, you can start teaching reading by age four otherwise, you can start teaching reading by age five. Most second and third children may be ready to read sooner because they've watched older siblings read. If a younger child shows interest in reading, you should oblige her. Children generally don't develop writing readiness as soon as they develop reading readiness and so it can be really tasking to combine reading and writing. The focus should be on reading with some fun pre-writing activities.

Your child is ready to read when she grabs a book and reads to a stuffed animal or you. She'll most likely ask you to pronounce words she finds unfamiliar too.

By age five, your child is ready to read, but this doesn't mean he/she will want to. Complaining, squirming and protesting are not signs of unreadiness, your child is simply being a child. It is quite rare to find them enthusiastic about anything unfamiliar which requires work at this stage. Even if your child is unwilling, dedicate five minutes per day to reading drills. Once she gets the hang of three-letter words, you can increase the time to ten minutes until your child achieves some fluency. Very soon, your child won't want to do the drills anymore and would want to read on her own but you should insist until the desired level of reading fluency is acquired.

In order to make reading fun for learners, it is preferable that they read authentic materials instead of the 'reading texts' provided in textbooks. Reading texts and going on to do comprehension exercises turn reading into a chore for young learners.

During the early years of education, the purpose should be for learners to read regularly and with fluency. It's a good strategy to include books of different kinds - biographies, myths, legends and stories from history. There are lots of child-friendly versions of these books available online.

As learners grow older, they will benefit from audiobooks as supplements to (not replacement for) reading.