10 Simple Teaching Techniques Will Make Your Child an Excellant Reader.

When I began homeschooling my first child, I wondered "How does a teacher with thirty plus students teach them all to read?" I was struggling to teach one child. Now with a few years of experience and some successes behind me, I'll share some of my most effective teaching techniques.
1 - Steady progress not instant mastery. Each day build on what the child has learned the day before. Every improvement no matter how small is a step in the right direction. If the child is learning something every day, you are succeeding. You are getting closer to your goal with each baby step.
2 - Set your child up for success. On purpose put him in situations where he will win. Set short-term easy-to-reach goals for him.
3 - Let him know you are excited about his reading goal. Praise him for every step in the right direction.
4 - Have story time every day. Read to your child. A child that is read to has a greater ability to put the words together into a meaningful story. Choose books with no pictures and encourage the child to build his own pictures in his mind.
5 - Choose reading material that is at the child's interest level rather than just his reading level. He needs to be able to relate to the story from his own real life experiences.
6 - Write words the children say. Suppose your child had an exciting day and he wants to tell you all about it. Grab a pencil and write down word for word what he says. Ask him questions to get more information. Write down exactly what he says. Then read it back to him. Let him read it to a friend. This kind of activity will help him transfer the written word into something meaningful.
7 - Label things around the house. Put labels on the table, chair, desk, floor, and ceiling. Anything that has a name can be labeled. Get creative. Use descriptive labels like big blue chair, Kris's room, dull brown carpet, pretty rose tea kettle, etc. Let the child use his imagination to come up with exciting labels.
8 - Teach at odd times. While making dinner, read the recipe out loud. Point our letters and words on signs while driving. Show him articles in the news paper. Read him the mail. Just about anything you are doing, you can include the child.
9 - See, Hear, Say, Write. Choose a reading program that uses this method. See the word. Hear the word. Say the word. Write the word. If your program does not include this, it can easily be added in. Just write the word on a paper. Tell the child what it says. Have him repeat it to you and then copy it onto his own paper.
10 - Read it to him, read it with him, child reads alone. Read the story or book to the child before you ever try to get him to read it alone. For the child who is just beginning to read, or an older one who is struggling, this is a very affective method. True, he may read some from memory, but it helps him to remember the words when he sees them in other places. After you have read the story, read it with the child. Take turns. You read a sentence then the child reads the next sentence. Finally, the child reads the story alone.

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.