Rajanukul Institute,Department of Mental Health, Ministry of Public Health
Children's reading is on going development starting from early childhood. Readiness for reading skills is essential that parents and caregivers will need to train their children some specific skills from early childhood before the children are enrolled in kindergarten. Children should read various stories from storybooks, signs and symbols which will help developing language skills, listening skills, stimulating imagination and promoting conceptual thinking. These are the brain development of an early childhood through reading.
My First Teacher
Childrens reading is usually the coherence of a part of the brain whose functions are relating to symbols and the brain that acts on the language. Basic elements that make children literate involve with the large number of vocabularies in their brain, awareness of sounds, environment and their recognition of letters and symbols.
In the first phase, all children are born with the ability to hear the sounds of different languages similarly. Later, the children will begin to differentiate the same or different sounds. Then, they will begin to link sounds with meanings by the age of 8-9 months. Babies begin to pick up the differences of the sounds available in their mother tongues and start to adopt the ability to listen to the phonemes and grammar in the language of their parents and caregivers. Parents can open the gate of learning for their children through various activities such as making the routine activities, playing and talking. These activities are encouraging children to obtain a lot of words in their brain. Recognizing the sounds in the environment is the development of basic skills in reading which boosts their ability to read or learn better when they enter school.
According to many studies, it is found that if children learn from teachers directly, they will link sounds with meanings of words better than children who study from a tape or video. Thus, parents have the opportunity to gain language experience as well as build confidence and encouragement.
Basic reading skills for early childhood
Many different aspects of skills are inherent during the growth of children both at home and at school. Parents can help children develop these skills by talking and reading books together and using the following tips to prepare the basic skills of reading for the early childhood.
1. Matching Parents can teach their children to learn about matching among shapes, patterns, letters and words by talking to children about matching games, such as matching picture cards with letters. Let them see full image and then pronounce the name cards and say the letters that match with the cards together.
2. Rhyming Teach children how to say words that end with the same sound. Play games with them by saying words that have the same sound. Play on words that are pronounced similarly or persuade them to sing a simple song that a kid can sing or a song after song game.
3. Letter Skills Teach your children to recognize the shapes of letters and their sounds. This will help them better remember once parents pronounce that alphabet to their children, such as Gor, Khor, Kor or ABC from books, magnetic letters, letter blocks or letter puzzles, consonant chart or children's toys with voice of words when a kid presses or squeezes them. Encourage a child to speak along with the voice of words heard. Read books together with children by pointing to the words you are reading.
4. Direction Teach them how to read a book that starts from left to right and from top to bottom.
5. Motor skills Practice writing letters and words will help the kids absorb reading skills even better. Teaching your child to practice writing letters and words using a pencil that fits his hand will help him control the writing well. Play with a kid focusing on activities that use the muscles, such as cutting, tearing, crumpling and squeezing.
6. Concepts of Print Tell a kid how to use books for instance open from right to left. Illustration is for a composite word in the book. The story includes introduction, body and conclusion. While reading, questions may be used to get a child involved or take him to the bookstore on holidays. He can buy his favorite and age appropriate books. After reading, questions are raised to allow him the opportunity to exchange ideas about books he has read.
7. Language skills Parents should be aware that the more a child experiences a language, the more easily he can learn to read. Parents help their kid to gain language skills by letting them take part in listening and discussing with both adults and children at the same age. The child will be exposed to the new vocabularies from everyday life and aware of the use of appropriate words that best fit the partner. Train him to listen to a story or poem, etc.
Tips For Getting Ready For Reading
According to Ages
Baby Frequent dialogue will teach a baby to recognize the different sounds available in all languages get familiar with the language and distinguish the sounds. Embracing a child and having him sit on the lap while telling stories is a touch of love and happy learning.
Toddler Storytelling with rhyming words, playing with words, parents hold a baby on the lap while reading to him and pointing the letters along. Children will learn that the sounds he heard from alphabets he had seen. When the kid sees them frequently, he or she will remember them and be able to point along the letters as the sounds are heard. Despite the kid cannot read and say, he or she will focus on sounds, point and try to pronounce the letter when he reads.
Preschool Age Children at this age usually like listening to music. Parents should find songs with rhymes or sing songs with rhyming words. Teach them to chant poems with rhyme and rhythm. Begin teaching them to recognize their name in order to get familiar with and remember it. In addition, word guessing game allows the player to memorize words.
Kindergarten By the time a child recognizes the alphabets, he will recognize the letters from the story he reads easier. Kid will like to read a favorite book and use the text in a book with their language.
Devices can be used to develop basic skills of reading
All things around us can be used to create media devices that stimulate and develop reading ability.
Picture Books Persuade children to start telling the story from pictures or read the story to their parents, although children cannot read, parents can read for them. It will make children familiar with various words well.
Picture Books like symbols or logos or advertisements that a child is familiar with or often sees them. He will know what these symbols mean although he cannot read. Parents should find some magazines, newspapers, paper, scissors and glue and ask him to cut the images to paste on their own picture book.
Chronological Picture Cards Find some cards of images, ask a kid to put them in chronological order and, after that, tell the story out of those pictures. Sometimes children may sort them differently from their parents thought. This will help teach children about the sequence of events from beginning, middle and end.
Pictures Storytelling Photos or images from magazines may be applied. Encourage a kid to tell a story from that picture. Persuade him to talk or ask questions about whom, what and why. Make sure that there are not right or wrong answers because the narrative story comes from his imagination.
Word Cards Cut a paper and write names of items that a kid frequently sees. Then attach them to various things in the house to help children become familiar with these terms faster.
Magnets of Letters The characters that are pronounced the same should be in the same color. Take the magnetic letters to teach that each letter has its name and looks like something he has ever seen. Later on, start to literally put down a simple word in order for him to practice reading. This will help him learn a phoneme.
Sound Guessing Game Find some devices like a bell, then shake it to make sounds. Or parents imitate animal sounds in order for him to predict what sound is heard.
Conclusion
Reading skills in the early childhood are ongoing development and begin from infancy. Some parts are picked up from parents or caregivers talk. Exhort a kid to look at pictures in a book and read for him. Reading books to a child is a process that should start from birth. Reading and storytelling to the early childhood before 3 years of age are taken as the organization of learning experience that helps develop language skills, promotes listening skills, and stimulate the imagination and concepts. Gaining experience and being a good model of learning through reading as well as developing a close relationship with parents or caregivers are crucial fundamental for social and emotional development in children.
