Teaching your Child to Read

Parents always think that teaching their child to read is a big deal. They buy expensive “How to” phonics kits, or Baby Einstein CDs and approach the Kindergarten teacher wringing their hands anxiously, and asking, “What should I do to help Lucy with reading”?
The most important thing to do is to relax and have fun with it all. However, you do need to start at the beginning and the beginning is the fetus.
Even before your baby is born, and certainly immediately afterwards, you must read to her. It does not really matter what you read, although the phone book could be boring for everyone, but do not steer away from adult material. The incipient human being in your uterus will respond to the sound of your voice as soon as she can hear. She will absorb the rhythm and musicality of the human voice so poetry, Shakespeare or good children’s literature will provide you with suitable resources to instill the growing brain with a love of the English language. Your baby will associate beautiful language with her caring parent and grow to love both.
As soon as baby is born, take her on your lap and read with her any of the amazing picture books now available for children. Again, do not worry if she is too young to understand. Show her the pictures, point to them as you read and read in an animated and loving way. Create a special time in the day for this sharing activity and you will be surprised at how soon your little person will come to expect and enjoy it. It is a good idea to make it a pre-bedtime routine that will help the child unwind from the days’ activities.
Soon your child will start to take notice of pictures and point to them with you, imitating your articulation of the words. She will pick out favorite books for you to read and demand that you read them over and over again. This repetition is often tedious for parents but it is a very important pre-reading activity as the words and story eventually become so familiar that the child can “read” them from memory. This is a scaffolding for real reading and should not be dismissed as mere “memorizing”.
As soon as your child begins to show interest in what you are reading you should point to each word and eventually encourage your child to track the words with her own finger.
Most importantly, make this time a loving and enjoyable experience and your child will look forward to it and ask for it every day. Never put pressure on the child to do more reading than she willing to do, as even a school-age child should enjoy reading activities. A young person will not thrive on force-fed words but will feed willingly on a smorgasbord offered with love.