Reading Problems Assessment and Teaching Strategies: Teaching Toddlers How To Read

Reading Problems Assessment and Teaching Strategies: Teaching Toddlers How To Read

1. Read to your child- As you read to children, even very young children, they learn what reading is for. They learn that we can enjoy it, that we get meaning out of the squiggles on the page. They learn print concepts. Their vocabulary and listening comprehension increases. Read often to children. Read things that you can enjoy together. Gradually increase the length and difficulty of the books . Be careful to never go above the child's emotional maturity level.

2. Print rich environment- Surround your child with a lot of print. Books , magazines, junk mail, labels, chalkboards, paper, markers, magnetic letters, wooden block letters, etc. If you have these things around, children will explore them and use them for pretend reading and writing. Encourage reading and writing behaviors in play. For example, play restaurant and let them take your order or read off the menu. Let them write a grocery shopping list. Help them find letters that they know in the junk mail and cut them out for a collage. As children learn to read, they will practice and apply the concepts they are learning during their play.

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3. Visual Awareness- In order to learn to recognize letters, children must see tiny differences such as O and Q, or M and W. This takes a lot of visual and spatial awareness. This awareness can be developed by helping children work on noticing and processing visual input. One way to help your child to develop this concept is through art. Have your child draw a person. Most toddlers start out drawing a head with the arms and legs sticking out. Talk to your child about what a person looks like. Talk about all of the different parts and how they are connected, including the head, body, arms, and legs. Have them look at themselves in the mirror. Cut out shapes of the different body parts, (circle for head, oval for body, long skinny rectangles for arms and legs) and help your child put them together to form a person. Now have your child draw a person. After a few times of practicing this, you should notice an improvement of the number and placement of the body parts in your child's art. Being able to draw a person with at least 10 body parts placed correctly, is a good indicator for reading readiness.

4. Oral Language and Vocabulary- Children need to always be expanding their vocabulary and their language structure. Vocabulary and oral language provide the foundation for reading. Without oral language, reading skills are meaningless. You can develop oral language skills everywhere. One way is to teach new labels for concepts that your child already knows. For example, when your child says something is big, repeat that it is enormous. Another way to expand vocabulary, is to introduce new words around a concept that you are experiencing together. For example, if you are at the grocery store, talk to your child about the different kinds of fruits and vegetables. If you visit a farm, teach words about farm animals. Even with very young children, use correct words for everything. Don't insist that they say everything correctly, just repeat what they say using the correct pronunciation and words.

5. Phonological Awareness- There are two parts to learning to read. One is training your eyes, to recognize letters and words. The other is training your ears to take apart and put together sounds of language. The auditory part of learning to read is called phonological awareness. It is often neglected and the lack of phonological awareness leads to reading difficulties in many children. Phonological skills are easy to develop. Practice rhyming by reading rhyming books or making up rhymes to your child's name or other words. Clap and count the syllables in words. Take a simple word like cat, and together with your child, break it into individual sounds. Say the individual sounds of a simple word and have your child tell you what the word is. For much more information on developing phonological awareness skills, visit our website.

6. Concepts About Print- There are many ways that print and books are organized that help readers understand them, but if beginning readers don't understand these concepts, this can lead to confusion. These concepts are easy to clarify. Show your child which way we read the print on a page, where we start reading, and which way to turn the page. Help your child to recognize words, spaces between the words, and upper and lower case letters. Teaching print concepts should not take very long and can be done while you are reading a story to your child or at the same time that you are working on other reading skills.

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7. Letters and Sounds- Learning letters and sounds is the beginning of learning phonics. If children learn the name and shape of the symbol and connect it to sound and words that use that letter they are learning the alphabetic principal, which is the foundation for reading and writing. First teach the name of the letters. Do this through songs, like the traditional alphabet song. Next connect the shape of the letter to the name to both upper and lower case letters. When your child is confident at naming and recognizing the letters, it is time to teach the sound. Use alphabet books, games, and songs to teach the letter sounds. Work towards flexibility (being able to connect the letters to many different words that start with that sound) and fluency (being able to quickly and easily name each letter and say the sound that it makes).

8. Sight Words- There are many words that children will use over and over again as they read and write. These are called high frequency words. It is important that children learn these words from memory rather than stopping to figure them out every time. The first and most important high frequency word for any child is his or her name. Other words include common words like I, the, and, etc. You can teach your child these words by using flashcard games, or matching games. You can write simple sentences using high frequency words and read them together.

9. One to one correspondence- In order to learn to read, children need to understand that one word written down represents one word that is spoken. This can be a challenging concept to develop. With young children, start by counting things like toys or crayons. As your child begins learning to read words write a sentence using big letters. Cut the words apart and place them on a table with plenty of space between the words. Read the sentence together touching each word as you read it. You can also put the sentence together like a puzzle. These ideas will help your child understand this one to one concept.

10. Phonics- When children have learned all of the concepts above they are ready to start learning formal phonics. Start by practicing short vowel words (like cat or dog). For reading, work on blending the sounds together to make a word. For writing, segment or take the word apart into individual sounds. Practice until your child can read and write these words easily. At this point move onto other concepts such as; beginning and ending blends, sh, th, ch, vowel combinations such as ai, ee, oa, etc. With each concept, practice until your child can read the words quickly and easily.

Pay Close Attention Here-

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Teaching your preschooler at home can be a very intimidating task, but when you consider that you have, so far, taught them more than they will learn in university; that you have taught them how to walk, to talk and to speak an entire language, then it does not have to be intimidating at all.

You are your child's role model and the model on which they moulded themselves. You are the one who always helped and corrected them.

In this way, home schooling your preschooler requires the same dedication, and for this reason you are the best qualified person for the job.

So let us look at how you can effectively teach your preschooler to read at home.

Get started

The biggest thing that stands in your way is not getting started. Your child will be ready to start reading anywhere between the ages of 2 and 5. As their parent you will be able to gauge their "reading readiness", but if you don't get started, you will be the one who's holding your child back.

Many parents are afraid so they put off getting started and they loose out on an incredible window period in their child's learning cycle.

Children who cannot read proficiently by grade 3 are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than proficient readers - Here's How to Teach Your Child to Read Fluently

So stop procrastinating and get started now!

Why begin with reading?

Reading is the basic building block that all future lessons and study will be built on. From now until they retire your child will be reading.

For this very reason, if you want to teach your child anything else, be it to write, do math or even use a PC or a cellular phone, then quite obviously teaching your child to read first is of paramount importance.

You must realise that this does not have to be a difficult or drawn out process. By getting your child to read books as soon as possible they will be self motivated to read and the job will become easier for you.

Find a reading system

Find a system that will make the learning process easy and fun. Children are not fans of struggling for a long time. They are very impatient and you don't want to put your child off reading.

For this reason it is important to find a comprehensive reading system, something that covers all the methods of reading, ie: phonics and sight reading. In this way you are ensuring that your child is getting a well-rounded approach to reading that will stand them in good stead in the future.

By following these simple steps you will be well on your way to having a preschooler who can read. It isn't really as difficult as it seems and once you get started, seeing your child read by themselves is all the rewards you will need.

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Teaching very young children to read is not a simple process, but it doesn't have to be difficult either. With a simple step-by-step reading program, you too, can teach your child to read at an early age and help your child achieve superb reading skills. To discover a super simple and powerful reading program that will show you how to easily teach your child to read - Click Here

Teach Your Child Phonics at a Young Age

Most educators will agree that teaching phonics to young children offers the best foundation available to create future interest in reading as well as the quest to learn new words. Since toddlers generally begin to blend letters and sounds this is the ideal opportunity to begin working with your child.

If you offer your child the opportunity, s/he will grab it. Parents might consider taking every chance they have to offer these opportunities. For example, most children learn the alphabet song early in their life. However, the alphabet does not really have any significance to a child unless they have additional materials - otherwise they are just sounds. One opportunity is to purchase a magnetic set of alphabet letters at your nearest teacher supply store. If you start by putting the first three letters on your refrigerator, now the 'A, B, C' begins to take on a new and different meaning. As you sing the song you can remove the letters and hand the 'A' to the child as you sing it. It is usually better to start with just a few letters so that you do not overwhelm your young one.

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The alphabet song can be a great introduction to phonics. Another great source is "Sesame Street." Once your child sees and hears the letters on the refrigerator - and, now on TV, this becomes something more significant. Other ideas include hanging alphabet mobiles in your child's bedroom as well as sometimes eating alphabet soup - offering another fun way to introduce letters. You can use alphabet books that you read to your child as you point to the letter. Soon you will want to introduce your child to pointing to the different letters as you say them. Rhyming books are also a great way for your child to learn letters, sounds, blends, and rhymes - Dr. Seuss still remains at the top of the heap with the books he offered through the years.

When teaching phonics you will also want to play games with your child. After your child progresses you will ask him/her to point to each letter of the alphabet. Next, you can begin putting letters together to form blends. An example is b and l. Throughout the day, once your child gets the hang of this, you can have fun by saying words and repeating the blends from the word. An example is floor..."fl." When your child understands what you are asking of her/him this is a sign of how successful you have been in your teaching.

Teaching phonics might seem somewhat difficult but it really is not. As long as you do not overwhelm your child with too much, too soon you will be thrilled with the accomplishments and strides your toddler makes.

Many in-service teachers are not knowledgeable in the basic concepts of the English language. They do not know how to address the basic building blocks of language and reading. - This is NOT a statement that we are making, rather, this is a finding from a study done at the Texas A&M University. Their study was aptly titled "Why elementary teachers might be inadequately prepared to teach reading." To discover the scientifically proven methods, that will enable you to teach your child to read, and help your child become a fast and fluent reader, visit Approaches to Teaching Reading

Learning to read is a long process, but it doesn't have to be a difficult process. Broken down into intuitive and logical steps, a child as young as two years old can learn to read, and older children can accomplish even more. For a simple, step-by-step program that can help your child learn to read - Click Here

I volunteer four hours a week in my son's first grade classroom. I help out in a variety of ways but primarily I am involved in literacy activities. It is an exciting time in a child's literacy life as this is the year that emergent readers become full-fledged readers.

While they will continue to spend elementary school increasing their site words and vocabulary, there is a point during this year when most children can pick up a book at their reading level and read it from start to finish with their own knowledge and decoding skills. For some children, that point arrives early in the school year and others reach it at various points in the year.

However there are a handful of children in every first grade classroom who will not reach that point this year. These children still do not possess the basic literacy skills and techniques they need to become readers. They do not know their alphabet letters let alone the sounds that each letter represents in words. This lack of knowledge holds them back both in reading and in writing.

While the other children can write fluent sentences using their growing vocabularies as well as phonetic spelling based on their knowledge of the alphabetic principle, the children who do not yet know the alphabet fall further and further behind their peers every day.

As the parent of a preschooler, you have to ask yourself. Which group do you want your child to fall within? Unless you want your child to be behind in literacy by first grade then you must make sure your child has mastered the alphabet before starting kindergarten. Here are 15 tips to help you get started teaching your child their alphabet letters.

Tip 1 - Introduce the letter by finding a word or a name that is meaningful to your child. Example: B: ball

Tip 2 - Point to the letter on an Alphabet Chart (you can make one easily using the "Chunky Letters" coloring sheets) so your child can see where the letter is in the alphabet. The chart can be a learning tool to help your child visualize what the alphabet looks like.

Reading makes your child SMARTER, here's how to develope early reading skills

Tip 3 - Sing the Alphabet Song and stop at that letter for the child to sing alone.

Tip 4 - Model the correct formation of the letter and have your child trace the letter in salt, sand, gel, fingerpaint, pudding, or shaving cream .

Tip 5 - Model the correct formation of the letter and have your child print the letter with a paintbrush, marker, crayon, chalk, q-tip, pencil, magic slate, or pen.

Tip 6 - Purchase magnetic letters to place on the refrigerator or cookie sheets to display the letter of the week.

Tip 7 - Point out the letter on signs and in books.

Tip 8 - Use playdough to roll out and make the letter or a toothpick to write the letter on the playdough.

Tip 9 - Talk about the shapes of the letters and if the upper and lower case are the same or different. Play matching games, same or different, or alphabet bingo.

Tip 10 - Take your finger and trace the letters on the palm of the hand or on your child's back.

Tip 11 - Practice using sticky notes and label objects in the house that begin with the letter.

Tip 12 - Alphabet Stamps are a practical investment for having fun with the alphabet for alphabet recognition, making words, and spelling.

Tip 13 - Eating the alphabet can be a delicious way to reinforce letters using vegetables, pretzels, potato sticks, and candy to form the letters.

Tip 14 - Decorate cupcakes, cakes or cookies using frosting tubes to print letters. Squeeze mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, or jelly letters out of containers to enhance your food. If your not hungry place inside a ziploc bag and practice printing letters on the outside of the bag.

Tip 15 - Try Alphabits Cereal for breakfast and name the letters.

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When reading to your child, read slowly, and point to the words that you are reading to help the child make a connection between the word your are saying and the word you are reading. Always remember that reading should be a fun and enjoyable activity for your children, and it should never feel like a "chore" for them. Click here to help your child learn to read