First and foremost, the easiest way to transition a child into reading is to teach them to love books. This naturally happens by reading to them from infancy or as wee babies.
While it may seem, as babies, your little one is not attentive, the mere act of expressing the art of reading to the baby, will spark a lifelong interest. As they get older they will gravitate towards wanting to hold books, open the pages, look at pictures. Even very small babies when reaching for toys, if they have been read to, will reach for books in the toy pile over other toys in many instances when they have been read to on a consistent basis.
As your baby grows and begins to try and read on their own or shows a marked interest in words and reading you may want to begin to provide them with a daily reading time that focuses on teaching them word recognition.
A popular, but expensive reading packet on the market today is called “Your Baby Can Read” in which the program incorporates watching sight words on DVD along with the same sight words on Flashcards and in books.
Many moms and dads do not like the idea of parking their child in front of the television as part of a daily education routine and that is understandable. Also, the program cost around $200.00.
However, there are easy steps teaching your child to read that will only cost the amount of the books and index cards.
First, you will need to purchase easy to read books that are specifically written to encourage word recognition and has repetitive words on each page.
A wonderful ready to read series of books is called “Step into Reading” – Ready to read step 1.
Lets use an example book by “Step into Reading” called “Hot Dog” by Molly Coxe.
You begin by reading this book to your child daily. As you read, use your finger to underline the words as you read. This helps them with word recognition.
After a week of reading daily, pull out your index cards. With a bold marker, use words from each page to mark on the index cards. For example, for this book, ‘Hot Dog’ your index cards, individually marked with one word per card, would look like this:
Dog
is
hot
mom
not
…and so forth… you would use each word on each page as an individual card until you reach the end of the book. For this particular book you would have about 26 cards made each with one word.
After reading the book, present to your child the first few cards with the words on the first two pages and go over them. Your child will probably not recognize the words at first. Daily, read the book and then do the first 5 flashcards that contain the first 5 words in the book which, again, are: Dog, is, hot, mom, not.
Go over the book and then the flashcards daily until the child recognizes the words on the flashcard and can read them. They may begin to recognize the words on the flashcards but will still need you to show them and help them also recognize they are the same words in the book.
This method of reading is by memorization. It is not phonetically based. However, you may also incorporate phonics into your reading method. While memorization is a valid way to learn words, phonics enables a child to furthermore learn to sound out new words on their own.
We incorporate the series “Fun with Phonics” in our learning program of memorization. These early reader books are an interactive series designed to develop sound-recognition skills through repetition. There is also a fun phonics wheel at the back of the book where your child can turn the wheel to spell words as they read! During reading these books we sound out the letters learning their unique sounds.
Also have on hand a huge library of easy to read books and also learning books that will develop your child’s awareness of their world. We have books on our daughters shelf that are above her reading age that she loves for us to read to her such as books on snow or how bees pollinate flowers. While these are not easy readers, they still help develop her love for knowledge and reading.
Easy books I highly recommend:
Fun with Phonics – Jen the Hen, Fat Cat, Dog in the Frog
Step into Reading – Hot Dog, Big Egg, I Like Bugs
Biscuit series by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
