Reading between the lines

Skills in reading and literacy are absolutely vital to your child's successful education and development, allowing them to communicate, understand, and be understood. Reading skills are the building blocks for all other forms of learning.

Attitude and enjoyment make the difference

Your attitude about your child's reading will make all the difference. The key word in helping your child learn to read is "enjoyment." You can start reading bedtime stories when your child is a baby. Start with colorful picture books and move on to ones with more text. Talking to your child about the story will add depth and prepare them for reading comprehensions.

Teaching a kid to read is not as easy as it looks and you should be wary of trying to do-it-yourself. Most school teachers and tutors use a combination of phonics (letters and the sounds), key words, and 'look-and-say' methods. This combination helps to ensure that children develop many different strategies to help them to learn to read.

You can support early readers in many ways:

Make sure you choose a relaxed, quiet time, free from distraction.

If you make it part of the daily routine, it will become much easier.

If a child can't manage a particular word, don't always jump in immediately and tell them what it is, but ask them what it begins with, and break it down into small parts.

It doesn't matter what your child is reading - comics, cereal boxes or instructions for a play station. The main thing is that they are interested, for it is this interest that will keep them reading all of their life.