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Statistics found at
Readfast.com reveal “in 1999, only 53 percent of children aged 3 to 5 were
read to daily by a family member.”
Reading with your child
is one of the most important things you can do with them. The earlier you
start the better. The library is a perfect place to start, but I love to
buy books at yard sales. You can never beat the book deals at yard sales.
To begin with, look for board books that have large pictures with not a lot
of words, and then slowly move up in complexity from there. If your child
is a baby they still benefit from being read to. It might be harder to keep
their attention; therefore, you might want to read to them in a singsong
voice. Whatever it takes it will pay off in the future.
Your child will soon
develop a preference for the types of books that they like and want you to
read them those particular books. This is great. Reading your child the
same books repeatedly helps them. This might even allow your child to
memorize the book and when they do they can “read” to you. This will foster
confidence in your child.
You can help your child
to develop one to one correspondence with the words by pointing to the words
in text as you read them. This will help your child begin to associate the
actual written word on the page to the spoken word. This skill is a very
important one to develop.
You want to be sure that
you are not watering down the complexity of the books that you read to your
child, never underestimate your child’s abilities and always keep them
yearning for more. This is why over time you should increase the difficulty
of the books and even allow your child to begin reading the books to you;
your presence will just be there for encouragement and to show that their
reading is important to you. |
