How can I help my child to read?
Why do children struggle with learning to read?
Why are phonological awareness and sharing stories important?
Learn what to do to help your child to read.
In my practice, I have seen many children struggle to learn to read over the years. What comes “naturally” might be difficult for some, and for some children, it may take a long time to learn to read.
In this post, I will tell you what I have noticed over time working with children. You will learn about phonological awareness that equips children with a base for learning to read. You will also understand the importance of reading and sharing stories with children. I will give you some ideas of how you can support your child in their journey of learning to read.
Phonological awareness
What is it?
Phonological awareness is recognising, distinguishing and working with sounds in words and sentences. It is a base for further learning to read. It is an ability to hear the sounds and an awareness of when words rhyme or start with the same sound (alliteration).
Phonological awareness helps break a word down into individual sounds (called segmenting) or put sounds together to form a word (called blending).
Phonological awareness is something that can be learned over time.
The ability to break the words down to sounds and syllables, find rhymes and rhythm, and alliteration are all examples of phonological awareness.
Why is it important?
Phonological awareness is the foundation for reading. Being able to manipulate sounds helps with decoding and spelling. Decoding is the ability to pronounce words correctly after applying what you know about sound-letter correspondence.
Learning a language comes naturally, but learning to read must be done with conscious phonological awareness.
Examples of activities that develop phonological awareness:
- Songs (especially action songs when children must use parts of their bodies – that helps with comprehension)
- Nursery rhymes
- Poems
- Finding words starting with the same sounds
Before children start learning to read, all these activities are introduced and practised. But if they struggle to read, it is not too late to start doing something that will help them with phonological awareness.
If a child hears, learns, and repeats rhymes in a song or a poem, they will eventually become “aware” that vowels and consonants make different sounds. It will help them in reading because it all leads to and builds up towards the ability to read.
Sharing stories
Reading books to your child, sharing stories, and looking at books together are all essential for children starting to develop reading skills. When reading with their carers, children become aware of several things:
- That the books have covers with a title on them
- That we read from top to bottom of the page
- That we read from left to right
Why is it important:
Sharing stories will help children with comprehension. I come across children knowing how to decode words (read them aloud) but not being able to understand what they have read about and unable to answer questions about a text.
Stories can also help children with comprehension, mainly traditional or fairy tales because they have a predictable pattern or a common language.
The Site may contain links to affiliate websites, and we receive an affiliate commission for any purchases you make on the affiliate website using such links at no additional cost to you.
What to do:
- Read to your child
- Look at books together, discuss the title and the cover’s contents
- Ask them questions- do not only read out the text but try to engage in a conversation with your child, even a simple one. Young children should be able to answer questions starting with “what”, “who”, and “where”. Older ones can engage in some reasoning and try to answer “why” questions. I wrote a post about boosting talking and understanding here.
- Provide plenty of opportunities to listen to and join in with nursery rhymes (YouTube is inundated with them)
- Listen to audiobooks- if children cannot read yet, they can at least access books through audiobooks which will help with developing their vocabulary and listening comprehension.
- Subtitles- turn them on while watching TV or videos. According to the campaign Turn on the Subtitles, this may double the chances of a child becoming a good reader. With subtitles on, children unconsciously start to associate sounds they hear with the letters and words they see
- Remember that words are everywhere: posters, adverts, and signs. Use every opportunity to teach them and encourage them to read.
And how do you help your child in learning to read? Let me know in the comments.
Pin it!
