To thrive at school and then develop the best possible career, your child needs to be an excellent reader. Just being able to read is not enough.
A child that enjoys reading will consume 2-3 books a week. That can be 10-20 times more than an average reader and so the gap opens steadily between the two.
So here are 5 things that will make a huge difference to your child's reading development. We employ all of them in our Easyread System:
TIP 1 - Don't Use Books
I know that most children learn to read with books, but most also never become good readers, let alone excellent readers. Almost any child can become a good reader and there are simple reasons why they don't.
You see, a clever kid will look at an early reader book and memorise the words that keep being repeated, and guess the others from the context. That gives the impression of progress. But the child is driven to more and more guessing as the books get more complicated.
Eventually you will see a collapse of confidence at around 6 or 7 years old.
TIP 2 - "Dimensionalise" the Phonemes
Your child needs to be familiar with the 43 phonemes we use. They are the little sounds that make up each word. You can find a list of them in any dictionary.
But they are tough to get a handle on. So the best thing is to create a visual image (with physical dimensions) for each one. That will make them much easier for your child to remember. For instance, we use the octopus that knocked a puss, the oak in a cloak, the owl with a scowl and the oon on the moon in Easyread for the sounds of the letter O. Those are much easier for your child to remember.
Our memories work mainly with visual images.
TIP 3 - Play These Games
We are avoiding books. So what else can you do?
Try these games, that work very well for us:
Build-A-Word. Select 6 plastic letters, including two vowels. Repeat the main sound of each one. Then think of a simple word for your child to write with them.
Select-A-Word. On a piece of paper, write three similar words, like hot, hat, pat. Read one of them out loud and ask your child to select which word it is.
Nonsense Words. Using your plastic letters again, write a nonsense word, like leb, kib, teg, vod. Ask your child to try to read it.
Easyread-I-Spy. Play the classic "I spy with my little eye..." game. But instead of using the first letter of the name of the object, use the first sound instead.
TIP 4 - Less is More
Never do more than 10-15 minutes of reading practice in one go. That is the most your child can do without losing concentration. Struggling on is counter-productive.
TIP 5 - Try Easyread TrainerText
TrainerText is how we let a child read unaided, while learning. The visual image for each phoneme in a word is floating above the text, so that the child can check if a word is unfamiliar. You can do the same with the images you have created in tip 2.
That will stop your child from getting stuck and is great for building confidence.
We see a new level of enthusiasm from day 1 and a leap in confidence over the first 3 weeks using these techniques. If you employ them, I am sure you will quickly see the difference.
