Reading Begins With Real Life Experiences

If a child learns to read well, he will be able to succeed in any other subject. It works the other way too. If he learns from experiences, he can understand what he reads. Reading does not only consist of putting sounds together to make words; but also putting words together to make sentences, and and sentences together to make a story. If he doesn't have a clue what a word or group of words means, the story won't make sense to him. The beginnings of a good reader is in real life experiences

A word only means something if the child has something real in his mind to connect it to. For example "apple." Your eyes read the word and you mind tells you the rest. You know what an apple feels like, what it tastes like, what color it is. You know it grows on a tree. You know what the price for it is at the store. You know Great-grandmother cannot eat one because she doesn't have any teeth. Baby brother likes to throw it around. Mother doesn't like him to because it bruises it and makes it soggy and yucky. There are many things that the word "apple" triggers in your mind because you have had real experiences to tie it to. If you'd never seen an apple, the word would mean nothing.

Toddlers are busy for a reason. They are learning how everything feels, looks, tastes, smells, and sounds. All this information is stored in their little brains. The more real life experiences with real things they get, the better they will understand the concept of reading when they reach school age. Interact with your child. Show him things. Tell him about them. Encourage him to use words to tell you about things. A child needs to be able to use words verbally before he will be able to read and write.

The simplest thing to you, a mature adult with years of experience, could be a great exciting discovery to a young child. Even a six-year-old going into first grade will come up with great discoveries that are every day occurrence's to you. Share the excitement with him. This is where your child's reading skills begin.

When a child learns to read, he learns to picture in his mind what the words mean. If he reads "The fox ran into the hollow log" he sees in his mind the picture the story tells. What if he's never seen a fox. Maybe he doesn't know what a hollow log is. Encourage you child to ask questions about the things he reads. Answer his questions. Show him as many real life experiences as you can. Go to the zoo. Take a nature walk. Find a fox, a hollow log. Let him see, hear, feel, smell, and listen to the fox and the log. Make the story have meaning then he will learn that those black letters on the white page are really more than just black and white letters. They mean something.

Read to your child. Every one says it. You can even read it on the cereal box. Read to your child. Children love books with pictures, because they can look at the picture to know what the story means. Read stories and books without pictures, and encourage your child to make up the pictures in his mind. When he has this background of being read to and making pictures out of the words, when he learns to read, he will already know how to convert the words into something meaningful.

Write down words that your child says. For instance, Johnny's tooth fell out. He wants to tell Grandmother all about it. Have him dictate a letter to her. Write down exactly what he says and then read it back to him. Watch how pleased he will be with the letter that he "wrote" to Grandmother. This kind of an activity will help the child see that written words mean the same as spoken words and get him used to seeing written words before he even enters school.

Give your child real life experiences and start him on the way to reading.

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