First of all, I’d like to say that it is important to remember that every human being is different in his or her own way, and that there is no be-all end-all method for teaching every child out there how to read perfectly. You will need to customize your approach to the whole thing in order to really make it worthwhile.

Nevertheless, despite us all being different, we still tend to share certain similarities on the basis of being part of the same species, and there are certain facts that apply to virtually every child who is learning how to read, and knowing about them will help you make the most of your time and exercises. Without further ado, here is a look at four factors you should know about reading.

1. It is a Complex Process

Even though it doesn’t seem like much to you, it is important to understand that for a little child, learning how to read is an extremely complicated process that requires them to develop a large number of skills at the same time. As Marilyn Adams stated in 1990 (and I’m paraphrasing), the whole process of teaching how to read is comparable to the operation of a car.

To expand on that, your children will be learning how to build words and sentences (building the car), they will learn how to expand on their basic skills and fix their own mistakes on the way (maintaining the car), and finally, they will have to learn to use all of their skills in the real world (driving the car). You can’t expect your child to be making tremendous progress after a few hours, so take it slow if necessary and above all, be patient.

2. Take the Achievement Gap Into Account

Whether we like to believe it or not, there is an achievement gap in our schools, and as the reading materials become more complicated, that gap becomes more prominent. It was established that whether or not kids fall behind mainly rests on the type of education they have received at home from their parents. In other words, to motive yourself and your child, it is important to understand that not taking the time to really learn how to read will inevitably lead to real trouble in school, and consequently, later in life.

3. There Has to be an Intervention on Your Part

Studies have shown that most children whose parents do not help them to learn how to read after the first grade have a very tough time catching up with the program. It is estimated that around 75% of students who are poor readers at the third-grade level will end up so in high school as well. In other words, it is your job as a parent to work with your child and help them lay a strong foundation to help them stay afloat in the years to come.

4. Learning How to Read is Very Closely Related to Talking and Listening

Reading is only one-third of what I like to refer to as the linguistic package. The other two components are talking and listening, and as it happens, they are all interrelated, in the sense that developing one helps you develop the others. As such, it is important to remember to not only concentrate on reading, but also on verbal and listening exercises. While it may seem like you are doing this for the purpose of communication, down the line, improving all of your child’s linguistic skills will help them become a better reader in the future.
 
 
 

One of the things which puts us, humans, above other animals, is our ability to use written language to convey pretty much anything we would be able to say. Over the years, it has become customary to teach our children how to read so that they are able to survive in this world.

One of the most important factors which determine whether or not the children will reap the full benefits of being able to read is their reading comprehension. If they simply learn to pronounce the letters and words without understanding their meaning, then they are never going to like reading, in the end limiting them in what they can learn and how they can express themselves. What I’m getting at is that you need to focus on making your child understand what he or she is reading, or in the end the lack of development in this area will end up hurting them.

The 7 Keys to Comprehension by Susan Zimmermann and Chryse Hutchins

Considering what I mentioned in the opening paragraph, you can probably guess what this book is all about. 7 Keys to Comprehension is basically a guide for parents to use to help their kids develop their reading comprehension skills, to understand what the words they are pronouncing actually mean. Here is a very brief overview of the seven strategies they use in the book:

• Connecting reading to background knowledge – It helps tremendously if the reader is capable of personally relating to what he or she is reading; it is easier for children to interpret what they are reading while using familiar objects, people and concepts.
• Creating sensory images – As most biologists will confirm, humans are extremely visual creatures, and learning to imagine a scenario in one’s head based on words is a skill that needs to be acquired. By creating sensory images it becomes easier for children to visualize in their minds the meaning of what they read.
• Asking questions – Naturally, if children don’t inquire about what they don’t understand, they can hardly learn. However, many children are more or less timid about asking questions, which is why they need to learn how to do it.
• Drawing inferences – The art of inference is very important in reading comprehension, as it allows the reader to draw conclusions about what they are reading based on various clues and premises that are given to them. Of course, it is best for children to learn this as young as possible.
• To determine what’s really important – For people with an underdeveloped reading comprehension, one of the main obstacles is determining what bits of information are important enough to be part of the big picture.
• Creating ideas – For a child (or an adult, for that matter) to truly understand what they have just read it is important to be capable of putting together ideas which can explain the events in the text, and building those ideas in a sensible and logical manner is an acquired skill, one taught in the book.
• Solving problems – Every once in a while a text is going to present various problems or mysteries to the reader, and contrary to what certain people believe, there are actually techniques and whatnot which can help readers solve those problems. If you don’t teach them to your child, they will have a very difficult time with more advanced and complex readings, especially in school.

Does 7 Keys to Comprehension Actually Work as Intended?

Well, to start things off, I have to warn you: this isn’t a book intended to babysit your children for you. It is meant for parents, teaching them what they need to know to develop their kids’ reading comprehension. In other words, in order to make the methods in this book work, extensive parental involvement is required, just like for most other activities… you didn’t think having a kid would be easy, did you?

In any case, this book has been purchased and reviewed by countless parents, teachers, and child development professionals, and they all agree that is insightful for both children and adults. Basically, Zimmerman and Hutchins have managed to successfully identify the conscious and subconscious processes through which natural readers go when going from simply learning phonics to understanding their meaning.

The authors manage to cover practically every approach to the subject, teaching concepts, making demonstrations, and even taking pedagogic angles on it from time to time. It even provides strategies which parents can use with their children, and tactics that the children can use to learn better while in class.

Also, you’ll probably be glad to know that the book, contrary to many other professional ones, was written in layman language and doesn’t use much, if any complex, scientific jargon; you don’t even need to have any kind of background in education in order to perfectly understand it.

All things considered, if you are trying to be an involved parent, at least in your child’s learning process, then you should definitely take the time to work his or her reading comprehension skills; certain studies and professionals have asserted that for children to understand what they say and read is an important developmental milestone which should definitely not be skipped. 7 Keys to Comprehension is a complete, reliable and effective guide that can tremendously help you work on those reading comprehension skills I keep talking about.

You’ve all probably heard it a million times at this point, but it is important to get your kids to start reading from an early age. As a matter of fact, there are certain pediatricians which heavily recommend that you start teaching your child to read as soon as he or she reaches three months of age.

The truth however, is that while many people know what I just said, they ignore why they should do it… they don’t know what consequences lie ahead should they take the wrong approach to early reading.

While a child can certainly benefit tremendously from learning how to read from a very early age, taking the wrong approach will bear a disaster; in the worst case scenario, you will knock the will to learn straight out of your child, and needless to say, he or she is going to have a lot of trouble in school later on. And so, I present to you an in-depth look at the approach parents ought to take when teaching their children aged from 0 to 2 years how to read; you will learn which types of books to use, and how to teach them to your child when they are 0 to 9 months old, 9 to 18 months and 18 months to 2 years of age.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends starting a reading routine when your child is as young as 3 months old.

• Most Babies Will: Enjoy tactile books with flaps, mirrors, textures, and sounds.
• Some Babies Will: Enjoy simple board books with action language, and recall pictures, sounds, and phrases from their favorite books.
• Some Babies Might Even: Enjoy longer picture books with a simple plot — especially if the plot has a pattern of repetition.

It’s 20 minutes before bedtime, and you’ve decided to start a bedtime reading routine with your 6-month-old baby. As you turn the pages of a sturdy board book, your baby seems so interested! She is grunting and grabbing at the book. You let her hold the book herself, and she babbles excitedly.

“Wow,” you think. “My baby loves reading!”

Then, she brings the book up to her face. . . and sticks it in her mouth for an after-dinner snack.

• Birth to 9 Months

  Reading to a baby can be hilarious — and it’s also bound to be frustrating for any linear-thinking adult. Many parents don’t see the value in reading to children this young. In a 2008 survey commissioned by Scholastic, only 48% of parents reported reading to their child when the child was less than 1 year old. An additional 17% read to their children before they turned 2, and another 15% began reading before their children turned three.

  This is also the age to introduce books with fun textures and flaps — children love to explore with their fingers and mouths as well as their eyes.

  When you read to a young baby, don’t worry about finishing the book or even turning pages in the right direction. Just enjoy playing with the book as if it’s a toy, and read as much as your baby will let you.

• 9 to 18 months

  At this age, you are beginning to hear your child’s first words. He is probably also pointing at objects and saying “Dat?” His receptive vocabulary (the words he can understand) is much richer than his spoken language.

  This is where early reading begins to pay off. According to a study published in PEDIATRICS , babies who were read to regularly starting at six months had a 40% increase in receptive vocabulary by the time they were 18 months old. Babies in the study who were not read to had only a 16% increase in receptive vocabulary.

  As your child begins to speak these new words she knows, now is the time to check out the plentiful “see and say” books. You’ll enjoy pointing out pictures and describing them to your child, and your child will enjoy pointing to pictures and hearing you identify the images.

• 18 months to 2 years

  At 18 months, your child will begin to have the patience for “real” story-time, cuddled up on your lap with a pile of books. Mother Goose and other rhyming books will delight her ears and train her to listen carefully to the sound of language.

  At this age, your child may want to “read” the books with you. He may ask questions, turn the pages back and forth, and ask you to read specific parts that interest him. Encourage this! He will also begin to request his favorite books, which he will like you to read over… and over… and over again. This will become an enormously satisfying ritual for him — and it builds a strong foundation for future success with books and reading.

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Pamela C. High, MD and her associates at the Child Development Center at Rhode Island Hospital conducted this study. (See PEDIATRICS, Vol.105 No.4, April 2000.)

Zoë Kashner is a freelance writer. Previously, she was an editor for Scholastic’s READ 180 program, the reading intervention program for elementary, middle, and high school students. She was also the editor of The World Almanac for Kids.

Source: Books and Your Baby: Ages 0-2

It is no secret that, as multiple studies have shown, children who start learning at a young age do better in school, and in life in general. However, the problem is that it isn’t exactly obvious to get small children into learning and reading activities… after all, these are quite boring if you remember your own childhood correctly.

Besides that, if you don’t take the right approach to teaching your children how to read early on, it will actually hurt their interest towards education, making them more likely to experience problems later on in their lives.

So what exactly are you to do? Well, the fact remains that there are ways for children to learn, and there are a few things which you can do to improve the process. What follows these lines of text is a look into how you should approach reading activities with your children (this is the best approach for those aged between 3 and 5). While of course these tips won’t give you everything you need to know, I do believe that they will make early learning much easier and more fruitful for both you and your children.

1. Fun With Letters

Children enjoy copying words out onto paper. Write your child’s name and have him copy it himself with alphabet stamps, stickers, or magnets. Encourage him to “write” his own words using the letters. Your child will write letters backwards, spell seemingly randomly, and may hold his marker strangely — it’s “all good” at this age when a child wants to communicate in writing of any kind.

2. What Word Starts With…

The letter-sound connection is one of the first steps to reading. Play a guessing game about your child’s favorite words. What letter does “p-p-p-pirate” start with? How about “M-m-mommy”? Once your child guesses one correctly, see how many words you can come up with together that start with the same letter.

3. Your Child the Author

Three-year-olds can be chatty, and by age 4, it can be hard to get a word in edgewise. Take advantage of your child’s interest in talking by writing a book together. Start out with something simple, like describing a fun day at a park or visiting friends. Staple a few pieces of paper together, and write out one or two of your child’s sentences on each page. Then, read the story to her and let her illustrate it.

4. A Different Way to Read

Reading to your child is great — but what’s even better is something called “dialogic” reading. That’s when you ask your child to participate in the story. Before turning the page, ask your child what he thinks will happen next. You can also ask your child what other way the book could have ended. For example, with the classic book Corduroy, what would have happened if the little girl hadn’t come back to take Corduroy home from the toy store?

5. Take Letters Outside

Kids are tactile and enjoy few activities more than poking things with a stick. Many preschools encourage kids to make letters out of Play Doh or draw them into sand or clay. The next time you are out in the park, or at the beach, or in the snow, use your surroundings to play with letters. Take turns writing letters in the snow, dirt, or sand.

6. Just the Facts

Try getting your child interested in nonfiction books. At the library or bookstore, find books on your child’s favorite topics. Cars, dinosaurs, dogs, and other topics are covered in on-level books with plenty of pictures, designed especially for kids this age.

Source: Reading Activities: Ages 3-5

If you are reading this, then I’m going to assume that you have been taught how to read from a young age.

If you look back on the way you were taught, chances are that you’ll recall more lectures and boring exercises more than anything else. In the last few years though people have started to take a somewhat different approach to early education, preferring to use educational games rather than traditional exercises. This tendency isn’t without cause; many studies have demonstrated that humans, children especially, learn better through engaging activities, especially if they are presented in the form of a game.

While some games may focus more on the educational aspect of things, others prefer to concentrate more on the “fun” aspect; Zingo is a game that manages to walk the fine line between both, being equally engaging and educational for children.

How Zingo is Played

Before looking into the game itself, I would like to warn you that it does contain small parts which represent a choking hazard, meaning it shouldn’t be used by children of less than 3 years of age.

In any case, Zingo basically has 3 elements: boards, tiles and the zinger. Each player (the game can have up to 8 people playing) gets his or her own board consisting of 9 tiles. At every round, a player presses the zinger, a plastic box, which then spits out two “mystery” tiles.

The goal of the game is to match the mystery tiles to your board, and to claim a tile a player simply has to call it orally. The player who fills his or her board the fastest wins the game.There is a total of 72 different picture tiles and 8 boards.

The boards actually have two sides: yellow for children who don’t really know how to read yet, and the red side is for the older ones who have already developed some skills. Each tile has a duplicate, giving everyone two chances to get what they need. Needless to say, there are many possible board-and-tile combinations to go through, ensuring that every game stays fresh and new.

What’s So Great About Zingo

So what’s there to write home about here? Well, for starters Zingo is capable of keeping children distracted better than any television set… and I’m not joking.

Kids love to move fast, be loud and compete with each other, and that’s precisely what the game offers them; they are up against each other to see who can finish their board the fastest and they need to use their voice to claim the tiles.

In turn, this means that their brain is constantly at work, trying to match the mystery tiles to what they see on their boards… which actually brings us to the next point: how Zingo fares from an educational perspective.

What Zingo Teaches Children

So what does this game teach them exactly? Well, for starters it teaches them to matching as they need to find the tiles corresponding to the ones on the board. It teaches them words recognition as each tile is a labeled image of something simple. Seeing as how they need to remember what is located where on their boards, Zingo also helps children to improve their memory as well as their concentration.

Last, but definitely not least, Zingo is a social game which makes children interact with one another, teaching them the ropes of social interaction (such as patience, respect and sportsmanship), something they are definitely going to benefit from in the future.

As you can guess, this game wasn’t only designed for readers… as a matter of fact, it was designed as a tool parents could use to help their children start learning about reading. Mainly, it is going to help them learn how some basic words are spelt, and it will even improve their vocabulary repertoire.
 

What the People Have to Say About Zingo

So what do those who have tried Zingo have to say about it? Well, as is usual for me in these situations, I like to go on Amazon and see what the people who have reviewed the product have to say.

At the time this is being written, Zingo has received 290 reviews and garnered an average rating of 4.8 stars out of 5. Only 2 people have given it one star, with one of them complaining that the game isn’t really suitable for eight year-olds, but that’s Amazon’s fault seeing as how their description doesn’t exactly match the one on the box. Another person complained of receiving the game in Russian, which made it difficult to play… but that can be chalked up as a shipping error.

In other words, pretty much everyone is ecstatic with Zingo, having nothing bad to say about it.To purchase this game (or learn more about it), you can go to the one of the following links below.

How many children in this world do you think have trouble reading? A small minority? Half of them? Well, as it happens, around 40% of the children in this world have trouble learning how to read in one way or another. This means that close to two fifths of the Earth’s entire child population is experiencing difficulties when it comes to learning linguistics. While right now it may not seem like something very important, in the future this will create a lack of people who are capable of reading and writing well, which are necessary skills for most careers out there.

Why exactly do these children have problems reading? While in a few cases some kind of condition is at work, for a majority of children with reading problems, the main culprit is the current reading education we have. At least, that’s the idea which prompted Marion Blank to write The Reading Remedy: Six Essential Skills That Will Turn Your Child Into a Reader.

Who is Dr. Marion Blank?

Before getting into the book itself, it would be best to get acquainted with its author. Well, as it happens, Dr. Marion Blank is a development psychologist who is currently the director of the Light on Literacy program at Columbia University.

For more than forty years she has been diligently studying how children learn, and her efforts have paid off as she is considered by her colleagues to be one of the world’s foremost experts when it comes to literacy. She even developed her own reading system which has helped thousands upon thousands to improve their skills, and that’s what The Reading Remedy is all about.

What The Reading Remedy Has to Offer

So what is the book about? Well, as Marion explains it in her book, she believes that before being taught how to actually read, there are six skills which children need to learn. Without them, they are more than likely to experience many difficulties during the learning process. The book itself is divided into three parts, with the first one explaining why the current teaching methods for reading aren’t working, the six essential skills that need to be taught (and why), and a few pages about “The Hidden Abilities in Reading”.

The second part of The Reading Remedy is all about teaching reading. It contains five parts, each one lasting between 10 and 20 pages. This part looks at how you should teach sequencing, handwriting, content words, noncontent words, and how you should be going about teaching through books.

The third part of the book contains five parts as well, with the main subject here being how to build a teaching program for your child. It touches on word and letter sequences, which letters to write, how to teach activities for the words you are teaching, how to create books for the kids, and finally how you should go about evaluating your child’s progress.

What I thought of The Reading Remedy

So what exactly did I think about the book? Well, to start things off, it has very concise instructions on how you should go about implementing Marion’s system, and they help you do that by providing some mini-books and reproducible forms which you can start using right away. The knowledge she provides on reading education is actually quite interesting, especially seeing as how it is coming from a person who has spent a majority of her life studying the issue; the insight she provides into early education in general is invaluable.

All in all, the book is easy to use, read, understand, and actually gives you practical knowledge which you can implement and see at work for yourself. I highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to teach their child(ren) to read, regardless of whether or not they are experiencing difficulties. To acquire the book simply follow the link below.
 

When it comes to teaching your child how to read there really isn’t one specific program or method you can follow and hope to achieve the best results.

Learning how to read is a very complex process in which many factors come into play, and improving on any of those factors will contribute to their reading capabilities. One of the most important aspects of reading comprehension is understanding how vowels work and how their sounds can be controlled by other letters.

In other words, the sounds to be made when reading the language need to be worked on… or else your child will more than likely end up with pronunciation difficulties.

A Look at Learn to Read by The Starfall Team

What I’m basically presenting here is a collection of 15 children’s books designed for kids of ages 4 and up. As you can guess, this isn’t just some random assortment as the books were made by The Starfall Team one of the best available online resources when it comes to early learning and educational toys.

If you feel like it, have a look through their website (The Starfall Team), read the information they have to give so you can make sure for yourself that they know what they are doing. In any case, on with the product itself.

This collection of 15 books are part of a learn-to-read collection, with these ones focusing on the phonics, and more precisely, on vowels. Every story is centered around a humanized animal for the child’s entertainment, such as Zac the Rat or Mox the Fox for example.

Each of the stories is dedicated to showing a specific aspect of vowels and how they work. For example, there is a story for 2 vowels, R-Controlled vowels, and Y as a Long-I and Long-E. In addition to that, the illustrations were carefully made to depict what the text discusses in a colorful and eye-catching way.

To get a bit more technical, the 15 books each have durable gloss covers, measure 6” x 9”, and they can all be stored in the integrated case with handle.

Is it Worth Trying?

Well, let’s take a deeper look at the product itself, starting from the physical aspect. Those who are worried about the books themselves being dangerous needn’t to as they are covered with Velcro tabs to be kept secure. While the carry handle box may be a bit fragile, it contains no sharp edges and let’s face it, the only job it has is keeping books safe, which it does quite well.

When it comes to the books themselves, they are actually quite comparable to what five and six-year olds learn in their early school experience. It was meant for ages 4 and up, meaning that if you start early using this your child will be more than prepared to face the challenges at school.

The stories in the books are actually much better than what you would get in most manuals; instead of just being pages on which text is describing an image, these are actual, interesting stories with simple and charming drawings. Everything you need to teach your child how to read is included in the set; there is no need for any multimedia, although the book is available on the Starfall website for those who prefer it online.

All things considered, Learn to Read by The Starfall Team is an excellent way to teach your child everything they need to know about vowels, all while keeping them entertained with cutesy drawings and fun little stories. The best part is that contrary to other reading programs which teach the same thing, this one isn’t expensive at all.

Indeed, we’ve taken a good look around and found that you can purchase this book set at a 17% discount for only $19.58. To do so, simply visit the link below.
 

Hello, if you’ve landed on this page then I am guessing that you are looking to get a bit more insight into the system of thought behind reading readiness concept in relation to the Hooked on Phonics Learn To Read Program.

What is Reading Readiness?

To start things off it is necessary to define what reading readiness is. According to the official definition of the concept, it is a point at which a person is ready to start learning how to read. In other words, it is the phase during which a non-reader transitions into a reader.

How is it Acquired?

Contrary to what some people may think, babies actually start to work on their pre-reading skills starting from birth as they listen to what is being said around them. While they cannot really distinguish meanings yet, they can make out sounds and associate certain emotions to them. In order for a child to learn how to read, they first need some type of a grasp on the oral aspect of the language. However, it is theorized by the Ontario Government (2003) that while acquiring knowledge of the oral language comes naturally, reading is something that must be taught.

How to Develop Reading Readiness in your Child

It has been observed that children who were more exposed to literacy-related activities from a young age were much more successful when learning how to read. It is recommended that you engage in pre-reading developmental activities, which basically means that you will have to work the oral aspect of the language with your child, such as reading them children’s stories for example. What your child will learn during these critical early stages will serve as the foundation for all the knowledge they will absorb from that point on.

Before you start teaching your child you must remember that reading readiness is something arbitrary, meaning that different children will require different approaches. It may take you some time before you find a method that will produce good results. A child always learns better with someone more skilled guiding them through the learning process, whether it’s a parent or a more capable child.

How does the Hooked on Phonics System Integrate this Concept into their Program?

Well, the Hooked on Phonics Learn To Read Program actually has pre-kindergarten levels that are based on the concept of reading being a skill that is best learnt through coherent and skill-based instructions. Naturally, these levels are meant to give your child a better understanding of the oral as well as the written language before he or she goes off into kindergarten.

In order to help children attain reading readiness they provide a variety of learning materials including workbooks, flash cards, education online games and DVDs as well as step-by-step instructions that come along.

If you would like to learn more about the Hooke on Phonics system itself, then check out my Hooked on Phonics Review.