How to Teach Kids to Read from an Early Age

The aim of this write-up is to list several ways through which one can get their child reading before he/she turns 4. I will begin by trying to situate our contemporary situation and list the various ways through which reading by the age of 4 is very achievable. The tips worked for my daughter and I, and I must say, some of her current teachers who have children her age who cannot read, wonder how I managed to do so.

Learning to read earlier at the age of 4 is one of those life-skill traits that could boost the self-esteem of your child anywhere in the world. On the train, at school, church, libraries, and on the road sides. Nothing is worth the joy of a child who goes past a sign post and makes efforts to read what is on it. Not only is the joy and confidence instilled in the child, but also, as a parent, you are able to see for yourself the end results of your efforts on your child. The overall impact is pride, joy and a tap on the back for the effort. In today’s age, we are constantly bombarded with an overload of information that time can easily slip past without us noticing as we click from page to page, admire photos from person to person, and chat for hours on several message apps while our children desperately seek our attention from our gadgets. My believe is that we have now passed the computer age, and traversed rather naively and at the speed of lightning to the addiction age in which we no longer enjoy a walk without some device. We hardly take note of the sunshine, the movements of the clouds, the one-off fresh and gentle breeze to and fro our daily movements. Taking a moment with nature has become an enormous task and even a harder thing to do. Just because it is called a mobile phone, doesn’t imply one should carry it every where else. My phone is mostly used when kids are at school, and I try to make my mobile a desk-based phone. It can quickly become sickening to carry a phone almost everywhere! Call me ‘old-fashioned’, but that’s a name I’d rather get interpellated with than be a slave to a gadget and pay for its use. Come to think of it, you can save yourself some chicken change if you manage to limit as you prohibit yourself from going above internet and calling limits. Plus, a get away from your phone, will give you the advantage of focusing on the now, and to stop fiddling with the gadget for piddling reasons. Having said that, I do, however, recognise that everyone has an addiction. My addiction was being on FB and I should be honest, I got to make almost £400 selling home-made body creams on that platform. I thought I could transform my life with making creams, but I’ll reserve the story for another time. I have so far, made an effort to contextualise how our contemporary technological age can steal time from our hands, and we realise maybe too late that it wasn’t worth it away. So the twelve things to do to help your child read at 4 are:

1)      Put a time limit on browsing on Facebook or any other social networking sites. 10 minutes a day or 10 minutes, morning, 10 minutes afternoon, and keep the phone away for the rest of the day. I don’t disagree you need time to catch up with latest updates on Facebook, but when you spend more than an hour everyday on it, then you should spend same time with playing with the kids.

2)      Begin reading as from birth. I delayed reading till when mine was six months. If you ask me, there’s no harm in reading weeks after birth. There are so many books out there that could help you as a mom with certain lessons best of mine were Dr. Seus’ books, oh, The Places You’ll Go, and I had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew. Some of us moms will just sit in Cameroon and say where do I get the books from? Just go to google and Amazon and read some of the excerpts from there instead of browsing photo to photo all day long.  I couldn’t afford all the books I would have loved to read and I will go to amazon.com and read a few pages that were open to potential buyers to evaluate content. I also managed to write a book titled Amazeland by Delphine, and is now sold on Amazon. This is to say, if are passionate enough when you do sow a seed, nurture it well, you can reap different fruits from the same tree.

3)      Borrow books from the library-fortunately, books are now sold with an age recommendation. Early readers/beginners, ages 2-5 etc. so look out for books with very simple two to three letter words. If you are determined, no matter how far the libraries are, you’ll find them. If you can’t find them, take a pen, and a paper and write yours.

4)      Read the books pointing at the words and be sure to read with great enthusiasm. Change your tone as you read along, mimic the characters’ traits by making facial expressions in order to get you and the kids laugh along as you make efforts to bring the story to life through your actions.

5)      There are other books usually referred to as, ‘touch and feel’ books. Get the children to touch and feel them, too. Texture is very important as it would enable the child to get a semblance of the images which could assist in putting their imaginations to work. Furthermore, the kids to play different parts as you all read along.

6)      Make sure to bring the book to life and make it interestingly interactive so that they look forward to reading time. If you force them, they’ll detest it, if you don’t get involved, they won’t feel obliged. Geniuses are never born, they become and for that to happen, mothers and child carers can help our world become wonderful if we at least, read.

7)      If you want kids to read, you’ve got to read with them. Don’t sit on the sofa watching TV while you ask them to go fetch a book. That’s a recipe for disaster. You must be seen to practice what you preach, particularly with kids.

8)      When your child gets to the age of 6months or thereabouts, get toys with numbers, and alphabets. They have to learn their ABC’s and never do that by forcing them to cram it. I used to tell my little one after breakfast that you can’t feed your stomach without feeding your brains-hihihihi. But eh, that was a way to make her know that one doesn’t just know things from above, you’ve got to learn it. So every morning after breakfast, we practiced our ABC by playing with flash cards. It took a while, but we eventually arrived. Dedication is paramount-not an option.

9)      At 1.6 months, you are ready for the flashcards. Use them to play with the baby. Hide the cards somewhere, and begin looking for it. When you find it, read out the letter and the words on it. Take some time off to find YouTube videos on how to read for kids. There are several videos with different English accents from all over the world on Youtube. You must ensure that your child listens to a well-articulated video programme. The BBC website has more on children’s things that might also be of interest.

10)  Do not forget to read in the morning, afternoon, and evening if you find the time to. But if you don’t, twice would do. I don’t know if this is right, but my little one only sees me with a phone when I want pictures, and that’s probably on Sundays.

11)  Get into a reading routine with your child. A few minutes of reading after breakfast won’t hurt a soul or in the evenings.

12)  Most of all, make reading a fun time. You’ll be surprised to see him/her identify words at the age of 2.6 in the books for early readers/beginners, and by three he or she will be able to read cat, mat, cat sat on a mat etc. Don’t you stop there, get onto something more challenging with his/her reading. That way, they stay on top.

If my little Miss Sunshine could do it, so the little girl or boy who rocks your world, can!!! Good luck and share with all parents trying to give a great start to their children.

Copyrights-Delphine, G.N. (2016)