My younger one who is all set to turn 4 in the next couple of weeks started reading from the time she was 3. And no, I never sat down with her to ‘make’ her do it. In fact, I am the kind of mother who never sits down with the children for homework and never asks them to do so either. But even then, they picked up reading really effortlessly.
Want to know how? I’ll share my tips.
1. Reading out loud as babies
I have been reading out loud to my babies from the time they were born. Being an avid reader myself, I would read out my own books, even as I was breastfeeding (I literally am never ever without a book and it helps!).
By the time they were one, we finished most board and soft books and moved on to more books. I would point to the word that I was reading, and this made them curious to try it out themselves.
2. A B C around the house
I feel, the best way to learn reading is when you see the letters around you, and not always in a book. So, we made these cute little posters at home, writing A and putting fun A-based images around it, and so on. I encouraged my children to find the images that started with that particular letter and put it accordingly.
When they saw the letters around them all the time, they soon started relating the letter to the sound. This was the first step to learning phonetics, and getting on to reading independently.
3. Playing with phonetics
This is a fun game I play a lot with the children. While saying out a word, I always stress on the sound that each letter makes. So, for instance, if I am showing her the moon, I would say it out slowly and stress on the sounds M-O-O-N. Gradually, this became a habit, and they too would try to listen to the sound and connect.
4. Interesting stories and acting them out
All the books that my children have are really interesting, and the stories are also easy for them to relate to in real life. Also, when we are reading them out loud, we make sure to add some fun feature to it, such as play around with our voices, act out the emotions, express, and also explain what is happening. safe road crossing and traffic signals when she was 3, thanks to real life teaching.
In a lot of cases, I also help them connect to the story in real life. For instance, a story about a child learning to cross the road for the first time had a zebra crossing. I took my 3-year-old out and showed her one, and trust me, we have crossed that zebra crossing for 4 months at a stretch, at least 4 times each day!
And she already knew everything about safe road crossing and traffic signals when she was 3, thanks to real life teaching.
Also Read: When should you stop reading aloud to your child
