Home School Preschool
When you decide to teach your child to read, there will be many choices and decisions that you will have to make; when I decided to home school my son, and by extension to teach him to read, there are many things that I wish I had known beforehand.
It took me a long time in my experiment to get my son to read by himself and I could have shortened my journey a lot if I had known any of the following:
You need a reading system
There are already many reading systems in existence; each using a different reading method. Some use sight reading and others use phonics, most have themes to keep your child’s attention.
What I have learnt in choosing a reading method is that it must include both sight reading and phonics; and in the right order. Sight reading allows you to teach your child the many common words in English (words like their, I, the, people, etc.) that cannot be sounded out and phonics allows your child to read more complex words by themselves.
There are different levels and stages for using each method and it must be done in the right order; sight reading first then phonics. In this way you can easily have your child reading their first book within a month and reading entirely by themselves within a few months.
I wish I’d known when I started out that the right reading system is essential and that most reading systems are either phonics or sight reading based, so that there is always a shortfall in your child’s reading ability; unless you use a system that encompasses both methods at the same time.I would have started earlier
According to cognitive psychologists, children are primed for learning between the ages of 2 to 5. I began teaching my son to read when he was 4 years old and using my reading method. If I’d been aware of this window of opportunity I could have begun teaching him to read at a much younger age and he could have progressed a lot further in his reading ability a lot earlier.
I would not have been so afraid
In looking back, I can now see that teaching your child to read is easy and I would have gotten started sooner if I hadn’t been so afraid of messing it all up. There was a time that I worried about knowing how to do it, whether I could actually do it, how much of my time it would take and how long it would take for him to learn to read.
Knowing what I know now, I would have gotten started a lot sooner.
Teaching your child to read is actually one of the simplest and most rewarding tasks a parent can undertake. With a little advice from those of us who have gone before you, you can undertake this duty with confidence. Just remember, use the right system for both you and your child, start as early as possible and don’t be afraid; no-one is more dedicated or qualified than you to teach your child to read. All it takes is a bit of patience and your love.