From what age to teach a child to read?
There is no unanimous opinion. Some parents are convinced that a child should be taught to read at 4-5 years old. Others lower the bar to 2-3 years. Others insist that a child should not be “tortured” before school. They say that teaching reading is the task of school teachers. Who to believe?
Each child is developing at its own pace. Therefore, do not get attached to a specific age, but evaluate how mature the future reader is in learning.
The child is definitely ready to learn to read, if he is:
ist in der Lage, ganzheitliche Sätze zu bilden, spricht klar und zusammenhängend;
spricht Sprachlaute leicht aus und unterscheidet sie, verwechselt nicht Konsonanten-Silben (zha-z, ya-ta) und Buchstaben in konsonanten Wörtern (code-cot);
unterscheidet zwischen rechts und links, oben und unten;
die Buchstaben richtig ausspricht;
interessiert sich für Briefe und Lesen.
- is able to build holistic sentences, speaks clearly and coherently;
- easily pronounces and distinguishes speech sounds, does not confuse consonant syllables (zha-za, ya-ta) and letters in consonant words (code-cot);
- distinguishes between right and left, top and bottom;
- pronounces the letters correctly;
- shows interest in letters and reading.
If a child in something does not meet the criteria, but shows interest in letters, and books – it is normal. Speech is not as coherent as we would like it to be – we communicate more with the child, ask and answer his questions. Instead of [c] we get [sh] – we find speech therapy exercises, do special gymnastics or go to a speech therapist.
The child does not just look at picture books anymore, but asks or even asks for something to read, or tries to figure it out on its own?
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Methods of teaching reading, their pros and cons
There are dozens of techniques that can teach a child to read. We will briefly tell you about a few of the most popular, not always the obvious pros and cons.
Reading by syllables (phonetic method)
A classic method used in kindergartens and elementary school. First, the child learns to pronounce sounds (phonetics) and letters, then to combine them into syllables and whole words.
Typical parental mistakes in teaching your child to read
Emphasis on memorizing letters, not sounds
What seems to be wrong with remembering the letter “B” as [Ve] and the letter “M” as [em] or [mae]? But when instead of “subway” the child says “meteoreo” the error will become obvious. It is necessary to teach the child to call the letters only by sounds corresponding to them: “B” as [c], “M” as [m], etc.
Excruciating activities
Children of 3-4 years old cannot be attentive for a long time, so a 10-minute session will be enough for them. With guys 5-6 years old it is optimal to study for 15-20 minutes. If you see that the child has become distracted, the lesson should be stopped.
Psychological pressure
“You are already 5 years old, and you still can’t read! How will they take you to school?” Intimidation will only take away the child’s desire to study. Or it will cause fear of reading at all.
The English writer Aidan Chambers in his book “Tell us. Reading, thinking, discussing” wrote that it is important to praise the little reader for every achievement. Here he went to look at the books, took one of them, and then suddenly decided to switch to another. And each of these steps is important.
Lack of parents’ habit to read
Children try to imitate adults in everything. And if they see Mom or Dad sitting for a book, they will definitely want to read it. Therefore, it is important that there is a culture of reading in the family.
How to develop a child’s keen interest in reading and learning in general?
Read books with your child
Discuss and retell their content so that the child understands and remembers the text. You can read out loud interesting passages from books and invite your child to find out what they are talking about by reading the book themselves.
Show your children that reading is the key to the door behind which many magical worlds lie. A child interested in books will be interested in learning and learning new things every day. Be a mentor for the child, who will always support and give advice.