Help Your Child Start On The Path Of Reading

1. To encourage your child to have the ability to read at an early age, here are some tips.

Pictures And Words

If you plan to start reading to your young child soon, invest in quality children’s books, with interesting story lines and lots of colorful pictures.  Your child is in a mysterious land of shapes and sounds until she begins to read for herself.  She has to make sense of what she sees and hears.  Like a detective on the trail of stolen jewels, she has to have clues.  The clues are pictures, words, and word combinations.  Pictures help her recognize or identify the characters in the story.  Words offer further clues and you may want to add your own, for example, if the story is set in Africa, your child might assume it is a place like any other.  If you elaborate on the hot, dry grassland or desert landscape, the story is given an entirely new perspective.  Word combinations are often the author’s artistic expression, designed to give a poetic touch to the language, adding appeal.

A Child’s Experience Adds Meaning

Reading is an interactive activity for both the reader and the listener.  The author and illustrator together fill the pages with exciting, creative ideas and stories through words and pictures.  The little reader is not a passive passenger.  She relates to the words and pictures with her own ideas and experiences.  What she gets from the printed and illustrated pages will also depend on what she brings to them.

For example, your young child may have played with your neighbor’s puppy  earlier in the day.  When she sees a picture of a puppy or hears you talk about a puppy in the story, she will respond with an action or a squeal of delight.  Her personal experience will give more meaning to the story than if you had read about or shown a picture of say, platypus which she may never have seen.

It is important to realize that for the genius to come out of a child, her experience with her surroundings add meaning.  This is one reason why you need to take your child out from a young age.  Take her to the mall, the zoo or the park.  Let your child accompany you on car rights, train rides, to the supermarket, the pet store.  Day trips are great to stimulate her senses.  Wherever you are, there are always landmarks you can visit.  When you do, pick up brochures with pictures, books or postcards.  Referring to these, you can talk to your child about the earlier experience on your way home and discuss what your child like or dislike and any other things she has to say about the place of visit.  In the weeks or months that follow, you can use these materials to remind your child of your trip, keeping the memories alive for both of you and offering continuous opportunities for stimulating conversation and more learning.

The Magic of Wonder

To a child, a new day is always filled with new wonders and discoveries to be made.  Yesterday and tomorrow are not relevant. It is today that is important and it is today that she devotes her full attention to.  Every thing has a fresh wonder to her, a bird singing in the tree, sunlight reflected off a puddle of water, a piece of paper flying in the wind.  She is fascinated by new faces, people talking and laughing.  To her, life is one big wondrous and exciting adventure in which she is an eager observer and participant.  With so much going around her, the child often cannot contain herself and starts to say her thoughts out loud, wondering about things, places, animals and plants.  Encourage your child when she does this, with a nod of your head or a verbal affirmation.  It is part of the development of her genius brain. 

Word Games

Young children are constantly trying to learn new words.  New words excite them and give meaning to the world around them.  You will hear her say the new word time and again, just for the pleasure of feeling it roll off her tongue.  You can  make it more enjoyable for your child by playing rhyming and guessing games with words.  Nursery rhymes are useful when it comes to having words that rhyme.  Humpty Dumpty, Baa Baa Black Sheep or Jack and Jill.  Sounds fascinate a child.  You can play a simple word game with your child.  Come up with words that rhyme like, Cat, Rat, Hat or Bat.  Imaginative games add a certain dimension of fun to the education process.  As a result, the child is always interested, always enthusiastic about learning more and building upon the foundation of learning and genius.