God has gifted human beings with the ability to learn from the moment they are born. We can indeed say, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139:14). “Babies are wired to the senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing whenever they are fed, played with, talked to, sung to and read to” (Fox, p. 12).
Children learn ABOUT reading, as well as learning TO read. What children SHOULD learn ABOUT reading:
● From birth - Reading is fun
● Pre-Kindergarten - Year 2: Learning to read is a skill; Reading is fun
● Years 3 - 6: Reading is a tool for learning; Reading is fun
● Years 7 - 12: Reading is a significant way of learning and functioning in life; Reading is fun
Reading aloud to and with your child is an important key for laying the foundations for learning literacy skills. “The benefits of reading aloud to the children in our lives are endless. We share the words and pictures, the ideas and viewpoints, the rhythms and rhymes, the pain and comfort, and the hopes and fears and big issues of life that we encounter together in the pages of a book” (Fox, p. 9).
Reading aloud and talking about what we’re reading has other benefits for children as it sharpens their brains and “helps their ability to concentrate at length, to solve problems logically, and to express themselves more easily and clearly” (Fox, p. 14).
Understood.org lists 8 tips for encouraging good reading habits in young children:
- Make reading a daily habit - read aloud to your child and enjoy it!
- Read in front of your child - let them catch your enthusiasm
- Create a reading space - just a comfortable space with enough light and room for a book or two
- Take trips to the Library - they can see other kids enjoying reading
- Let your child pick what to read - they’re more likely to read something that ‘grabs’ their attention (you can assist their choice of an appropriately levelled book if they’re going to read it themselves by giving them a selection of books to choose from)
- Find reading moments in everyday life - recipes, grocery lists, road signs
- Re-read favourite books - over and over again!
- Learn more about how children read
https://www.understood.org/articles/en/8-tips-to-help-young-kids-develop-good-reading-habits
When your younger or older child is reading aloud to you, sometimes when they can’t work out a particular word, they will look up for assistance.. "We need to focus their eyes back to the print, to train them into knowing that that’s where the secrets of reading lie, not in the air around us, or on our faces.They must learn that looking at the words should provide the help they need. If they look at the word and still can’t say it...we should tell them what the word is, while at the same time making very sure they’re looking at the word when we say it. The more we read a particular book aloud to them before they read it themselves, the less they will look up for help. They’ll instead be able to figure out any difficult words by using the information they’ve stored in their memories, as well as the print on the page, their knowledge of language, and their general knowledge” (Fox, p. 137). This is one advantage of the Raz Kids Reading App that all students from K-6 at St Peter’s have access to - it first reads the story to them to build understanding, and then they can read it, knowing how to predict the tricky words that come.
The following strategies may also assist your child to work out those tricky words, particularly in unfamiliar books:
PAUSE
If they are not sure, pause; wait to give your child a chance to solve the problem. Allow a few moments for thinking time before expecting an answer.
PROMPT
Give a hint or lead that they can find in the text to encourage a response. Prompt them to:
● Read to the end of the sentence or reread from the beginning of the sentence and try again
● Think about the content or story and what word would make sense
● Look at the beginning sound of the word and/or use the pictures to help work it out
If the word is not correct after two prompts say, ‘The word is….’’
PRAISE
At all times it is important that children are praised and encouraged for their efforts. Use a variety of encouraging words and phrases to support them with their attempts. Your praise will greatly assist your child’s literacy development:
● Praise when your child reads a sentence correctly
● Praise when he or she corrects after a mistake
● Praise when your child gets a word correct after your prompt
● Praise for their effort in trying to work out a word, even if you end up telling them
For older readers, ‘The Super Six’ are a set of comprehension strategies that allow them to improve accuracy and gain meaning from a text. All of these should be encouraged as part of your read-aloud times with your child, no matter what their age.
● Connect - Students are encouraged to make personal connections with the text relating to something in their own life, another text or something occurring in the world
● Predict - Using information from book covers, text, familiar words and experiences to anticipate what will be read and to actively adjust comprehension while reading
● Question - Open-ended questions, or questions that connect with a child’s feelings toward the book can provoke further interest and engagement
● Monitor - Students learn to stop and think about the text and know what to do when the meaning is disrupted
● Visualise - Students create mental images from text they read. Visualising brings the text to life, engages the imagination and uses all of the senses
● Summarise - ‘Who, What, Where and When’ and “Main Ideas and Details’ questions assist students to identify and accumulate the most important ideas and restate them in their own words. http://www.super-six.info/
The following link contains an explanation of 8 fun techniques that may be used to assist your child to develop the skills that underpin reading and writing in a practical way.
https://www.understood.org/articles/en/8-multisensory-techniques-for-teaching-reading
Mem Fox, a well-known children’s author and speaker, has formulated 10 Read-aloud Commandments that show the importance of reading aloud with and to your children. Even doing 2 or 3 of them will go a long way to developing a love for reading in your child.
- Spend at least ten wildly happy minutes every single day reading aloud. From birth!
- Read at least three stories a day: it may be the same story three times. Children need to hear a thousand stories before they can begin to learn to read. Or the same story a thousand times!
- Read aloud with animation. Listen to your own voice and don’t be dull, or flat, or boring. Hang loose and be loud, have fun and laugh a lot.
- Read with joy and enjoyment: real enjoyment for yourself and great joy for the listeners.
- Read the stories that your child loves, over and over, and over again, and always read in the same ‘tune’ for each book: i.e. with the same intonations and volume and speed, on each page, each time.
- Let children hear lots of language by talking to them constantly about the pictures, or anything else connected to the book; or sing any old song that you can remember; or say nursery rhymes in a bouncy way; or be noisy together doing clapping games.
- Look for rhyme, rhythm or repetition in books for young children, and make sure the books are really short.
- Play games with the things that you and the child can see on the page, such as letting kids finish rhymes, and finding the letters that start the child’s name and yours, remembering that it’s never work, it’s always a fabulous game.
- Never ever ‘teach reading’, or get tense around books.
- Please read aloud every day because you just adore being with your child, not because it’s the right thing to do.
https://memfox.com/for-parents/for-parents-ten-read-aloud-commandments/
Reference: Fox, M. (2001) Reading Magic. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia
