By Chris Lopes
Oct 28, 2010
Reading is an important skill that you can help your child to develop before they enter kindergarten. You should make sure that your child is familiar with books and with written language. You should help them to recognize individual letters and words, particularly their own name and to begin to link letters and syllables with sounds.
The easiest way to help your child to learn how to read is to spend some time reading stories together. While you read, you should hold the book so that your child can look at the page, and run your fingers along under the words so that they can follow what you are reading. As you read, your child will begin to recognize some of the written letters and words, …show more content…
It is also a good idea to find a book that your child likes and to keep reading it, as they will begin to anticipate where the story is going and what word comes next. This can help build their confidence as a reader because they will begin to recognize familiar words on the page.
As your child gets a bit older and becomes ready to start reading for themselves, you should allow them to start taking over the reading. You can begin by sounding out letters and words together. It is often helpful to discuss the words that you are reading. You can talk about the similarities and differences between rhyming words or words that contain some of the same letters. Writing down and reading some familiar words, such as the names of family members, is often a good way to start recognizing written words.
You should make the sounds that letters represent rather than telling your child their names. Gradually, your child should learn how to sound out entire words and they should begin to recognize some common, familiar words. When they have trouble with a particular word, you should tell them how to pronounce it and get them to repeat it back. You should then encourage them to keep reading, rather than putting too much emphasis on their