Do You Know The Necessary Steps To Take Before Teaching A Child To Read?

The first step in reading is not the actual process of reading, but the pre-reading skill level.  It’s recommended not to rush into reading with a preschooler.  It is better to take preschoolers on outings, expose them to good music, art, nature, and science study.  Teach your preschoolers about God and life.  Read frequently out loud and surround your young children with books. 

Some things you could do with your young child include, but are not limited to:

• Nursery rhymes
• Poems
• Fingerplays
• Songs
• Storybook reading and storytelling
• Book and print awareness (i.e. the direction we read in, parts of a story: the title, the beginning, the end)

There was a research study done where one group of Kindergarteners received lots of reading instruction, while another group learned about science through hands-on activities and experiments.  These two groups of Kindergarteners were tested when they reached third grade.  The Kindergarteners who had been in the science group were a lot farther ahead in their reading scores than the group that had received lots of reading instruction.  This was because of the more extensive vocabulary and thinking skills that the children in the science group had been exposed to as Kindergarteners.  They could understand at a higher level due to their more varied experiences.

This is very important: a child needs to develop their auditory and visual short-term memory before they start reading.  If they don’t have this, they’re going to have a hard time remembering what they’ve learned.  The goal is to have your child remember five numbers, letters, words, etc… in a row both visually and by hearing them, spaced about one second apart.  So for example, if you tell your daughter “Listen to these numbers and then repeat them back: 5, 9, 1, 3, 0,” your daughter should be able to repeat them back to you without any mistakes.  If your child cannot do this and you want to teach him reading, practice these exercises for a few minutes each day until he is successful.  Remember, your child should be able to either see five items or hear five items (i.e. numbers, letters, things), and be able to repeat what they were.

In the pre-reading stage you also want your child to acquire phonemic awareness.  Such skills as the following:

• Awareness of print and how a book is read
• Being able to separate words into syllables
• Able to orally blend syllables into words (i.e. “rab” + “bit”→”rabbit”)
• Being able to produce rhyming words
• Awareness of speech sounds in words.
• The ability to identify, sequence, substitute, and move around sounds in words.

The final skill listed above has been shown to be the best predictor of a child learning to read easily.  So the ability to identify, sequence, substitute, and move around sounds in words is very important.  So for example if you have the word cat, you want your child to be able to isolate and repeat the beginning sound and the ending sound in the word cat . 

Pre-reading instruction doesn’t have to be dry and tedious for your child, do a variety of things like playing word games to develop these skills.  Enjoy your time together with your child.