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.

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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.