Reading is an essential part of a
child's education. We don't have to wait for school to start the interest in reading for fun or information. This can be done as early as the cradle with hanging mobile letters or pictures of labeled animals or fruit. These colorful pictures are available as curtains and horizontal wallpaper strips as well.
As they grow, point to these letters and say the name of the subject. You can say the name of the letter and how it sounds. Do this often. Don’t expect a response just yet but you can be sure you’re influencing the conception that these symbols mean something.
Talking to children is second nature, people do it naturally and reading to them should be the same. A bedtime story shouldn’t be the only time they are read to. They have to know that stories come in books and see others reading.
When reading to them, show them the pages and often point to the words as they’re read. This helps identify meaning with the words. Tell them, “This word means ‘cat’.” In time they’ll ask what other words mean and that is exactly what we want.
Brightly colored pages are best for holding the attention just as movement is attention grabbing for us. Tell them the color of the page or objects on the page. Say that the dog is white with brown spots. Ask if they remember the color of the previous page.
Put their books in the bookshelf in their room so they know where they are. When they start selecting the book they want, it means they’re identifying and making decisions.
Above all, do not force anything. They are children. What they get pleasure from will be remembered in a general sense and narrowed to specifics later. If reading is constantly interesting, it will reinforce the value of doing it alone.
In spite of the doubt that spurned Time magazines’ cover- “Is the book dead?” of many years ago; the book will be with us in some form for a long time to come. Words, properly used, are the essence of complex communication. Teaching your child early gives them a head start in life.
All teaching methods have their detractors. That’s not surprising seeing that English spelling is in great need of an overhaul. We have the ‘ough’ in ‘through’ and a completely different sounds in the words ‘bough’ or ‘rough’.
Many letters have hard and soft sounds or change in union with other letters. Some are pronounced differently in different contexts. The word ‘read’ is said as ‘red’ and ‘reed’. We deal with it, but to a child it’s confusing. Understand this. It is not the child’s fault.
Most children will be reading independently by age seven but are capable of doing this well before that age. Let them do it at their own pace and let the value of reading settle in.
Forcing development may have the opposite effect of making the child dislike what will be a chore. Be careful.
If you see difficulties, have tests done on eyesight and hearing. Check hearing because there may be confusion about the sounds of letters. Emotional problems will slow a child’s progress in any learning, so look at the environment. If parents are arguing or not present when needed, the child’s mind is not going to bother with reading.
The environment is vital to development in any form of learning. Be seen to be reading and have books, magazines and newspapers as part of everyday life. They learn from example.
I’ve heard parents say they won’t let their children read comics. Why? The words and pictures go together to tell a story just like they’re used to. As they mature, they’ll grow out of comics and read words for their own sake. Banning something often has the effect of making the child more curious.
Make a point of asking the child about what they’ve read. This helps memory and recall and forces the child to summarize what has been read. You’ll also find what the child thinks is the most interesting aspect of the story. It’s a good indicator of intellectual and emotional status.
Everywhere we go there are words. There is no shortage of material to use, from their own name, their street name, to the advertising and instructions on packets. There are recipes to read, games with cards to read, word puzzles and funny uses for words. Use all this stuff in a fun way. Soon the little readers will want to become little writers too. We’ll leave that for another edition soon.
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I asked a friend who is the mother of five to have a say about different topics. She told me she was too busy to fit anything else into her life. With five kids is it any wonder? But she totally made my day with this email. Here’s Catherine.
Cot death (SIDS):
There is a great deal of information about cot death available. Although the medical profession has not given a definite cause, they do know that some things are more likely to trigger stress induced breathing that results in cot death. A number of years ago the doctors from the cot watch program where asked to create a monitor for children that were at risk. The monitor found that babies that had been immunized displayed stress induced breathing up to a month after immunization where un-immunized children didn't.
Babies in homes where people smoked or where there was inappropriate ventilation or over heating also displayed stress induced breathing. While researching this further they discovered that in Japan children are not immunized until they are at least two years old and that they have the lowest rate of cot death in the world. It was their belief that immunizing a child that was already at risk due to environment or medical conditions increased the chance of the child suffering from stress induced breathing, resulting in cot death. Immunizing these children has the potential to cause more harm and side effects than the supposed benefits of immunization would give.
Babies that did not die from cot death after an episode of stress induced breathing (post immunization) suffered greater respiratory problems, compromised immune systems, lowered level of oxygen in the blood. They concluded that immunization of babies should be stopped and if it was deemed necessary that immunization not be given until the child was at least two years of age and the immune system had had a chance to develop.
What are your thoughts about immunization and medications in general? Fluoridation of our water supply is another topic that raises concern in many parents. Why not make fluoride available to whoever wants it rather than mass medicating a city?
Hyperactive children are given drugs to enable both parent and child to cope. What causes hyperactivity? Type “hyperactive children” into Google. You’ll get a lot of sites dealing with the problem and a lot of marketers selling their wares. The cause as far as I understand it is in the food we fill ourselves with.
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Send comments. This should be a weekly event from now on. Glad to have you with us.
Take care,
Jay Ross.
