Teaching Toddlers Reading
Reading to Toddlers (1)
It's 9pm, and almost bedtime for the kids. Upstairs is peaceful and quiet. It is cooldown time, and you can hear the voice of an adult reading to a child who often times repeat after the adult, although the "baby slurs" are still quite evident in this child who still cannot talk just yet. You also hear another voice of an older child reading. From the reading you hear, you might assume that this child is in early elementary school.
"Moe, moe" the younger child says after the end of each book. Four books later, he still wants "moe". Meanwhile, the older child still continues to read in a sure and confident voice, and it's a rather long book. "No more", the father says, "it's bed time." The toddlers reluctantly put away their books. The lights dim, and it's now bedtime.
The first toddler is Ethan, our second child at 2 years old, and cannot speak clearly yet. The older child, is our first child Raine. At just 4 years 2 months old, she has a grade 3 reading level with a reading age of 9 years old. Every night before bedtime, the "boy", as we call him, can't get enough of books being read to him, while our daughter reads her favorite books to her mom. You probably won't find many 3 or 4 year olds that read their own bedtime stories, but with some effort, patience, and the right tools, you can also teach your toddler to read.
The Benefits of Reading for Toddlers
The benefits of reading with toddlers are many. Reading is one of the best mediums for children (or anyone) to gain exposure to languages that helps with language acquisition, vocabulary growth, and intellectual development. In fact, studies have found that the majority of a toddler's vocabulary growth comes from reading, and not from oral language. In a study done by Cunningham and Stanovich, the researchers made some astounding discoveries, and one of the key finding is that children's books contain 50% more rare words than that of adult prime-time television. Furthermore, they found that children's books also contains 80% more rare words than the conversations of college graduates. It probably comes as a surprise for most to find out that children's books contain so much more rare words than the conversations of educated adults, and suffice to say, it should be glaringly obvious that nothing beats reading at helping children with language acquisition and vocabulary growth.
Reading to your toddler is the first step in teaching them to read. It's not an easy task to teach a toddler to read; however, starting with consistent reading aloud sessions is one of the best ways to get your little one on to reading. It gets them used to the idea of reading; helps them realize the fun and entertainment that can be gained from reading; it helps expand their imagination and stimulates intellectual development; and it also helps the toddler develop some very critical and fundamental understanding of print. Through reading sessions, the child learns about abc's, and develop some basic understanding that the sounds we speak are represented by the printed text they see in the books.
How to Read to Toddlers
Parents should read to there toddlers at least once a day - the more the better. The reading sessions do not need to be long. Children's books are typically a short read where you can go through one book in 5 to 7 minutes reading at a relatively slow pace. One of the best reading times is bedtime story reading sessions every night. Have your toddler pick and choose their own favorite books for you to read, this encourages their participation, and keeps them interested with a book that they want to read. When reading with a toddler, read slow enough so that they can understand, and it's also very beneficial to read expressively. There's no need to feel silly or out of character to read in an expressive and engaging manner. Use different voices and different tones as appropriate for the story you are reading.
When reading for toddlers, don't just mechanically read through a book from front to back. Make a real effort to engage your child during the story reading. Point to the illustrations and discuss what's going on with your child. Ask questions to help your child better understand the story, and most importantly, have a LOT of fun reading. Show your child that reading is fun and enjoyable!
While reading with your toddler is a great way to familiarize them with print and get them on to reading, how you read to them plays an important role in how effective your reading sessions become to help your child develop print awareness. In the next part, we will share with you some critical findings in studies that have found that young children pay very little attention to the printed text in story books while being read to! So what can you do to help your toddler gain more print awareness while reading if they don't even pay attention to the printed text? Don't fret. We will share with you some super simple methods that you can use while reading with your kids that studies have found to work exceptionally well at helping children develop print knowledge and language awareness.
We'd also like to share our reading programs for toddlers that allowed us to teach our children to read before they were 3 years old. Yes, reading to toddlers early helps build an early foundation in reading and language development; however, to teach a toddler to read is quite a complicated and different endeavor than simply reading to the child. Our toddler reading programs help to greatly simplify the teaching process, and provides step-by-step lessons. With patience and care from the parents, you can effectively teach your toddler to read in a relatively short period of time with amazing results. We have proven it with our own children and have videos to prove it.
Click here to discover how you can easily teach your toddler to read using a simple and super effective reading program. (See video proof.)
Part 2: Teaching a Preschooler to Read >>
|
