Pre-Reading Skills: How To Prepare Your Kid To Learn To Read April 18, 2018 – Posted in: Inspiration – Tags: pre reading, reading
Though all kids develop at their own pace, there are reading readiness abilities that kids generally and predictably develop based on their age. These pre-reading abilities helps parents and educators know what to look for as a child’s development is followed, and it can alert parents and caregivers to any reading abilities which may want extra attention.
I love reading. I truly do. Just like most kids have a small comfort, like a blanket, that helps them fall asleep, I’ve books. It appears that evidently I simply can’t go to sleep until I’ve read a couple of chapters from a book that’s or probably once was on the New York Times best sellers listing. Being that reading is both relaxing and fulfilling to me, and that most individuals would agree it’s the single most important educational skill, it is important to me that my kids are also book lovers.
I started reading to my children when they were only a few weeks old. Now, my son loves to read…and hates giving books back to the library. His argument goes like this, “But Mother, I want these books!” and I actually do feel like I break his little heart each time I insist we slide the books into the drop-off bin at the library.
My daughter will sneak away from the fun in the playroom to crawl upstairs and read her favourite board books. I’ll check in on her to see she is sitting in her grandmother’s rocking chair in her bed room with a pile of Sandra Boynton or Eric Carle books, like Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and From Head to Toe, each of which she has carefully chosen from the book basket next to the chair. When she sees that I have caught her in the act, she smiles brightly and holds the books out to me, requesting to be read to. And, how can I resist?
WHAT ARE PRE-READING SKILLS
Simply put, pre-reading skills are the abilities your little one needs in their arsenal before they learn to read. These are things that will ease the stress and difficulty of learning to read then they start formal education. Helping develop pre-reading abilities are among the best and easiest things a parent can do to prepare their youngster for reading.
Recent research reveals kid’s brain capacity for literacy and language skills increases by being read aloud to. Reading to our children is among the most precious things we can do as a mother or father to prepare them to learn to read. There are 6 main pre-reading skills children develop before and during preschool that, if learned appropriately, assist dramatically in easing their learning to read.
- PRINT MOTIVATION
Print Motivation means being enthusiastic about and interested in reading books. Parents should read in front of their kids. Even if it’s a grocery list,e-mail, or a recipe, make it visible to your kids that you not only read frequently, but that you also get pleasure from it. Of course it’s also appropriate to read with your child daily. Read with a natural and cheerful voice. Allow your child to choose his own books from the book shelf, basket or the library, and help him find books which might be on a fascinating topic. In case your child desires to check out six dinosaur books, fine.
- PRINT AWARENESS
Print awareness is noticing print and understanding it has a function, that every word on a page represents a spoken word. Print awareness also includes knowing how to handle a book, which side is the cover, how to hold the book, and the way to turn pages one after the other and which way to flip the pages. Parents should allow kids to handle books, showing them which way to flip the pages. Point to phrases as they’re read and point out familiar words in the surroundings. Youngsters particularly like to see words which might be related to a favourite topic, and love seeing their own name in print.
- NARRATIVE SKILLS
Having narrative skills means being able to describe things and retell story events, although for a young child this may simply be repeating major nouns found within the photos. Constructing narrative skills could be done by encouraging pretend play, telling one another stories, and asking open-ending questions while reading. Kids love to read repetitive books, which helps build story telling abilities because children use the predictability of the text to retell the story.
- VOCABULARY
In this sense, vocabulary merely means knowing the names of things and connecting them to objects, ideas or feelings. Of course non-fiction books are nice vocabulary builders, but so can other image books. Words like wonderful, marvelous, and extraordinary, are words that might not be in a 3 year olds speaking vocabulary, however reading can be a good way to increase their use of less familiar words. When approaching unfamiliar words in reading, parents should stop to provide a simple explanation.
- PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
Phonological awareness is the piece that comes before phonics. It’s having the ability to hear that words are made up of smaller sounds and playing with these individual sounds. Parents may help build this skill by encouraging their children to talk and say silly things. Challenge your child to alter the starting sound in a word, or the end. For instance, from cat to fat to sat, or cat to can to cap. Sing to your little one and share nursery rhymes.
- LETTER KNOWLEDGE
Letter knowledge is understanding that letters look different from one another and have their own identify and sound. Parents can begin educating their children letter knowledge by singing the alphabet song, and teaching their child to identify his own name. Read aloud alphabet books, of which there are hundreds, and challenge your child to describe the shape of every letter.
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Many of these strategies come naturally to parents, and you’ll discover that a lot of them you might be already doing. What great readers you’re preparing! Or, you might read this and find yourself slightly overwhelmed. Just take one idea to focus on. Start with what you discover the easiest, perhaps print motivation, and progressively move into the other pre-reading skills mentioned.
