As a parent, one of the most important things that you can do is help your child to improve their reading comprehension and their general understanding of reading. Reading is a useful skill in just about any walk of life; becoming a more robust and ready reader is only going to be of benefit to any young child. However, like any other parent out there, you probably have one question in mind: how do you teach your child to read?
And it’s not easy. It takes no small amount of effort, planning, and preparation, to get your child to start reading on a regular basis. The most important thing that you can do, though, is practice with them.
While some children hate being asked to read aloud, you should look to do so just to help them build the belief that they can read properly. The more confidence that you can give them with regards to their reading style and quality, the more likely that they are to continue reading and giving it their all as the days go by.
That’s why we recommend that you take as much time as you can to help your child become a more robust reader. What, though, can you do if you wish to make a normally confusing process a bit easier? What can you start to do as a parent when you want to help improve your child’s reading comprehension overall?
How can you support your child properly?
For starters, you can consider trying out a program known as Children Learning Reading. There are many reading reviews and Academic guides from parents which rave about this program being a solid investment for your child’s future.
As a parent, you want to be as involved as you can in the life of your little one. However, you might wonder why your child would view yourself as the ideal person to learn from – why would they not, for example, look to their teacher or a faculty member in school to help them instead?
And the answer is actually a whole lot simpler than you might have first assumed. You see, children love to read with their parents as it gives them that time to spend with you. It gives them a sense of security: both of you locked away in this little story together.
For that reason, you should remember that your child will learn best when it comes from you. They trust you entirely: if you say they are getting better, they will believe you.
Starting out
To begin with, we recommend that you spend as much time as you can helping your child to start reading in the most simplistic manner. So, start out with something quite basic. You should start off with reading about a topic that your kid loves. For example, does your child show a love for animals? Then use some books which are about animals to begin with – it’s better to help start off in familiar territory.
Remember, a large part of successful reading stems from the little one being able to pick up what is on the page and ‘get’ it. If you overwhelm them with a topic they do not understand, it makes it harder for them to analyze the words. When you don’t understand the context and reasoning behind the words that you read, it can be extremely tough to keep up with it all!
A good thing to do at this stage is to reminisce about a time that has to do with the topic of the book. So, if your kid loves animals, talk about the time that you went to the zoo. Or the time you spent an hour in the fields looking at big cows. Get them to talk and open up about the experiences they have already enjoyed when it comes to their young lives.
Once they start thinking about this part of their life, they will be much more open to reading and learning about it. It’s so simple yet so effective!
Don’t always read at night
One issue you might have is that you get about five pages into the story, and your little one is already off in their dream world! When that happens, you need to find other times to read together. Instead of leaving it until bed time, when they are tired and just want to be read to instead of putting in the effort, do it during the day. A few hours of reading before bed is a good place to start for you both.
Spend some time sitting in the garden, or somewhere peaceful and local, and read to them. Your child will enjoy that kind of experience and will also be far more willing to participate. You don’t want a situation where all they do is lie there and listen to you, or only follow the words with their finger. It’ll be too easy for them to just let you take the lead so they don’t have to put in much effort, thus minimizing their learning.
Think about reading, when you aren’t reading
The best way to improve their reading quality, though, is to look out for things that could improve their reading when you are out and about. For example, start rhyming things together – when you ask them to clean the room, ask them to go fetch the broom!
It’s little things like that which help to inspire your child into learning about the world around them, and learning about words. Everything from rhyming books and nursery rhymes to little phonics exercises via phone apps can be just what you need to help encourage learning. Remember, we use words outside of merely writing them down: helping your children to get used to the world around them is going to ensure they are much more likely to actually learn language skills.
Then, when it comes to reading, they should be feeling relatively confident in their own ability to analyze language and grasp the context of the words. If you only think of how to teach your child to read through reading books alone, just remember that there is much more that you can do. Look at teaching them how to read as something that you can do in many different ways.
Reading can be improved away from books – at such a young age, encouraging all language improvements will eventually have a significant benefit on their reading comprehension!