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.

Question or Suggestion

Click on the comments button to leave a question or suggestion to be considered for our blog.

The Worste Day of School. Should I Quit?

Books, papers, crayons, glue, and just about everything else is strewn all over the floor. It's 11:30 a.m. and all we've covered so far is a half a lesson of math. The preschoolers are happy, for the most part, dumping every box and container they can find. Did I hear the toilet flush a few too many times? The students are getting grumpy. First grader seems to think that pounding the paper will solve the problem. Baby needs changed. Now they all think of a reason to leave the school room, drinks, potty, etc. Preschooler doesn't want any help with his work book. He's a big boy. "Now I 'm not going to do it because you told me how." Sisters start fighting over who's right it is to rest their elbow on the other's desk. Now every one is screaming, but not teacher yet. This looks like a good time to take a lunch break (it's lunch time anyway isn't it.)


Some of these problems can be avoided. How? Children get grumpy and uncooperative. Here are some simple steps that may help. You can take steps to dodge the problem, but you won't get away from it altogether.


Get the children to sleep early the night before. Many times a child is ornery just because he didn't get enough sleep.

Don't feed the children cereal for breakfast. Feed them something nutritious, with no sugar if you can help it. Even if your morning is rushed, a good breakfast is worth the time. Plan ahead the night before. Get up ten minutes earlier so you can fry some eggs or potatoes. Even good old-fashioned mush will do the job. Just don't call it mush. Think up a creative name. Hot Corn Cake With Milk.

Clean up the school room after school so you can enter on a clean room and get a fresh start. It only takes a couple of weeks to get everyone in the habit of putting things away before they leave the room. You may seem like the mean mama bear, but insist. No one goes out for anything, unless it's a real heart attack, until the room is clean.

Limit wacking-up-papers activities. Hide the scissors. It makes clean-up easier.

If every one gets really grumpy, change the scene. Play a game. Take a walk. You stay happy and you'll have 100% better chance of getting the children to be happy.

Put things you don't want dumped up out of the reach of little hands. Make a special place, preschool cupboard or shelf with toys that preschoolers can get any time. Have only a few toys at a time. If you periodically change the toys, it will keep them from losing interest and heading for more exciting things, like the toilet. Keep the bathroom door closed.

Let older children take turns doing a preschool "class." Have them take turns keeping the toddlers busy while you work with another child.

Don't sit there getting nowhere. If one subject, say math, takes all day, cut the lesson short after half an hour. Thank the child for what he's done that day and go on to the next subject. Stop while he's still in a good mood, before he gets frustrated.

If a child just woun't write his lessons, let him use a crayon, or colored pencil, or a pen. A little change may do the trick.

If this is your first year of school, or second, or third, and it's still hecktick, I'd suggest Homeschooling ABC's. Click Here! This e-class will help you get things organized and off to a good start.

For First-Year Homeschoolers

Don't you wish someone would take you by the hand and walk you through your beginning year of homeschool week by week? The homeschooling ABC's does just that. Click Here!

What Do I Really Need to Teach?

Go to any search engine, google for instance. Type what to teach in .....
3rd grade, kindergarten, etc. See how many thousands of results you will get. How does a homeschooling parent search through all of that and find what they really need? Homeschooling ABC's class will help confused parents sort things out.
To get your Homeschooling ABC's 26 week class Click Here! This is a class that comes straight to your email box.

Learn With Us

Because I am always looking for ways to improve, I'm always on the look out for great ideas. Become a follower of this blog and I will share averything I learn with you.

Time It! Motivate Your Child

Finding ways to motivate children to get their schoolwork finished in a timely manner is sometimes challenging. Try these activities with a simple timer and get those lessons done.

Sometimes a child can get stuck on one page or problem in a lesson and waste precious time getting nothing done. Before trying these time-it activities, be sure the child understands the lesson. One reason for not doing the work maybe that she doesn't know how to do it.

When using time-it activities, be sure your child does not give up quality for quantity. Make sure she does a good job. If it's not her best work, it's not acceptable and the timer keeps going. You know what your child can do and what her best work is because you've seen it before.

Beat Your own Time Time your child to see how long it takes to complete the lesson. Write it down and post it somewhere where it can be seen easily. Each time you do another lesson in that same subject, write it below the last time. Encourage your child to beat her own time.

Five Minute Page Turn This activity has given some humorous results. It works well on a lesson that has multiple workbook pages.

First, think back to a good day when the child completed this type of lesson in fairly good time. How long did it take to complete? This is how long you will set the timer. Look over each page and determine if it will need more or less time. A more difficult page will need more time. Explain to the child how much time he will have complete each page and be sure he understands all the instructions on each page. Determine a prize or reward to give if he beats the timer.

Now set the timer for the first page. When the timer goes off you turn the page. If he did not complete the page, he turns it anyway. The time for that page is over, and the timer is set for the next page with no break. When the timer rings again, you move on to the next page. If the child finishes a page before the timer goes off he can turn back to a page that he did not complete and work on it until time is up. When the timer goes off for the final page, the lesson is over.

Time One Problem This activity works well when a child is just plain bored with a page of the same thing like addition problems. Time how long it takes the child to solve one problem. Write down the time. Time the next problem and write down the time. Encourage the child to do each problem faster than the one before

Time's Up This activity will help the child increase her attention span. Set the amount of time for the lesson. Start with a small amount of time, 5 or 10 minutes. Explain to the child that you will study this lesson for the set time and when the time's up she can do an activity of her choice. Be sure to set the time to go back to the rest of her lessons.

Set your timer and begin the lesson. No matter how much or how little you feel she has accomplished, when time's up the lesson is over. After the first week or two, you will notice that she can stay focused for a longer amount of time.