Editorial: Help your child learn to read
Published 12:00 am Thursday, November 15, 2007
Tuesday was National Young Readers Day, but it doesn’t have be a designated day to find a good reason to read to a youngster or to encourage a child to read a book.
Reading to your child helps them learn at an earlier age, studies show. No study has ever shown that any TV program or video – or those new and ridiculous educational video games – helps children learn. In fact, studies have shown the opposite.
Here is one example: A recent report in the Journal of Pediatrics found that among the babies 8 to 16 months old, the more time they spent watching baby videos, the worse was their language development. Among 17- to 24-month-old kids, there were no examples of associations gained from watching the videos.
In other words, nothing replaces interaction with other humans. That is how children learn best. And reading to them is a wonderful way to connect.
Here are suggestions for parents with children learning to read:
– Practice sounds. Read books and poems with rhymes and alliteration.
– Assist them with connecting the sounds. Remember sounding out words? Do that with your child as you read together.
– Point out words and letters when you are outside the home with your child. Help them see how words are all over, on signs, maps, restrooms, things like that.
– Let them write the letters they know for you. This helps them connect to the sounds.
– Help them to see the context of what they read. Asking questions makes them think about what they read.