Children learn best when they’re motivated to make sense of the world around them. They learn on their own terms, at their own pace, and they learn best when they’re trying to make meaning of the world.
Reading
When a child begins to read, it can seem as though it happened overnight. One day he’s trying to sound out the words of his favorite book and the next day he’s reading fluently. It may seem that simple, but it’s not. Learning to read is a process that begins from the moment your child starts listening to language.
Early Reading Skills
Early reading skills, or prereading skills, as they are sometimes known, don’t really look like reading at all. The simple abilities to rhyme words, to understand that you start reading a book at the front cover, or even being able to recognize the logo of a familiar store are the skills that create a reader. the logo of a familiar store are the skills that create a reader.
Building Fluency
Those early reading skills bring your child to the next phase of reading, one in which she is ready to start recognizing sight words, begin using word families, and even bring home spelling words to practice. This is an exciting time for readers. Your child will begin slowly and painfully, but as she gains confidence in her ability to read words and learns to go back to correct her mistakes, she will become a more fluent reader.
A Parent’s Role in Creating a Reader
Your child may have become a fluent reader with the help of a teacher, but he’s going to learn his attitudes about reading from you. If he lives in an environment where he sees people reading, in which there are books, and where you are willing to play word or literacy games, he’s much more likely not to just be good at reading, but interested in it, too.
Writing
Learning to write is more complicated than just knowing how to tell a story or using correct punctuation. The process of learning to write actually begins before your child even knows how to read or write words. That’s because writing isn’t just an intellectual skill, it’s a physical one, too.
