How to teach your child to read
- Teach the sounds of the letters together with their names.
The sound (or sounds) of the letters are often different from the name of the letter. In reading, it is the sounds that count. When you read to the child, point to the letter C, for example and say; "the name of this letter is [see] and it makes two sounds: [kkk] as in the word cat and also [sss] as in the word cent." Then ask child to give you examples.
Do not be rigid in how the child pronounces the sounds. Regional accents and weak auditory skills make it hard for children to say most sounds in an academically correct way. Accept a reasonable effort. Recognize that learning sounds is only an intermediate step to learning to read.
- Teach lower case letters first.
Have you noticed that nearly all ABC books for young children teach uppercase letters first? Yet capital letters account for only five percent of all letters in written English. Therefore, pay more attention to teaching the lower case letters. Lower case letters are far more important in developing reading skills.
- Do not worry about grammar at this point.
Preschoolers, kindergartners, and first graders are very concrete in the way they think and cannot handle complicated concepts. It is not necessary at this stage to teach them about consonants, vowels, long and short sounds and such. They can learn to read just as well without these rules.
By age four, most English speaking children already have an excellent grasp of grammar of the language and in due time, they will learn all the formal grammatical rules in school. At this point, you need to concentrate only on the mechanical skill of reading.
- Teach your child writing along with reading.
Children learn to read faster and easier if they learn to write at the same time. The motor memory of the letters, listening to their sounds and seeing them in writing will reinforce new learning. So, teach your child to write letters and words.
- Limit the initial reading vocabulary.
Reading is a very complex process. Not all words can be read using simple phonic rules. Many important words need to be learned by sight. Teach only the simple and common words at first. The knowledge of 400 key words called Dolch words, is all a young child needs to be able to read well.
- Audiotapes, video or software cannot teach children to read.
The young child can pay attention to any one activity only for a short time particularly if it is challenging. Instructional tapes and most software with music are distracting, and weak listening skills paired with short attention span make audiotapes and most videotapes non-effective.
Parents put a lot of faith in computers but software by itself also cannot teach your child to read. Unfortunately, most commercial reading programs emphasize flash and entertainment over structure and content. These programs entertain and engage the child but fail at actually teaching them to read. To really learn to read, your child needs the most important tool of all - the kitchen table - where you sit together and spend about ten minutes a day working through the process step-by-little-step.
Questions parents ask...
What is the right age to start learning to read?
Most children can begin at age four. You can begin teaching the sounds of letters
at about four years. Simple reading instructions can be started about the same time.
By five the pace of new learning and reading fluency can increase dramatically.
Most children can learn to read at the second-grade level, by age six.
Can I hurt my child by starting early?
Of course not, but you may help significantly. Studies conducted over the last thirty-five
years concluded that early reading gives the child a significant advantage in school.
Children who start reading before the first grade maintain their lead in reading
and comprehension over their "regular pace" peers through grade school. Early readers
are also likelier to excel in other academic subjects as well.
About 10% of all children show signs of reading problems in second and third grade. By starting early you decrease the chance that your child will be one these children.
What about phonics?
Although the Reading Lesson is primarily a phonics-based program, we do recognize
that there is a great deal of brouhaha over phonics. Any reading program based solely
on phonics is both boring and difficult for the child and is incomplete. Our language
is not totally phonic and many words do not follow phonics rules and need to be
memorized. We need phonics to teach the child how words sound. But reading fluency
can only be achieved when the child learns to recognize the word as a whole rather
than sounding out. A successful reading program must combine phonics with some elements
of whole word approach.
This is exactly what we have done in the Reading Lesson.
Where to start?
Start with the Reading Lesson.
We believe that The Reading Lesson best meets the criteria of a good reading program. This course was created by a developmental pediatrician (Michael Levin, M.D.) with an understanding of abilities and limitations of the young child in mind.
The program has been particularly successful with children who have had difficulties learning to read. Books form an integral part of the program. The program is visual and innovative, easy to use, and produces results quickly.
The right way to teach reading to children
Learning to read is the most important task facing the young child and to fail at it is a serious matter. Although most children learn to read during the first two years of elementary school, they do not necessarily go on to read fluently or with pleasure.
Currently, there are two popular ways of teaching reading – the Phonic method and the Whole Language method. For some years now, there has been an ongoing controversy regarding these techniques, and each has its strong supporters.
The Phonic method, the basis of this book and considered superior by many, focuses on teaching the child to read small sound units first, and then to combine them into larger units – words. The awareness that combinations of letters represent unique sounds is the key essence of the Phonic method.
The Whole Language method, also known as Look-and-Say, does not break the word into sound units. Instead, it teaches the child to recognize the word by memorizing it as you would a picture. The theory is that the brain can translate directly from the written unit (the word) to the meaning. By knowing the context, the reader anticipates what is coming, and can often speed up the recognition process by guessing.
Research tells us that a fluent reader employs word-recognition while reading, but reverts to a process of breaking down the unfamiliar word into recognizable sound units. The fluency comes after years of decoding new and unfamiliar words using phonics and then incorporating them into memory. The key factor in fluency is developing this ability to effortlessly recognize letter units and words. Without this essential skill, we would be limited in vocabulary and reading comprehension.
At first glance, Phonics and Whole Language methods sound contradictory, but in fact, they complement one another in building reading fluency. Phonics if used alone is not enough. Although most English words can be read using simple phonic rules, there are many that defy these rules. English is a hodgepodge of words from many cultures and countries. For the young reader, it appears confusing and inconsistent. The vocabulary is vast, the pronunciation is often irregular, and the exceptions are as numerous as the rules.
Phonics combined with Whole Language as needed is better equipped to take this complexity into account.
The majority of children – nearly 80 percent – can learn to read regardless of the teaching method used. But for the other 20 percent – particularly those with reading difficulties – the combination of Phonics and the Whole Language is the best way to teach reading.
Why teach with The Reading Lesson?
I got your package a week or two ago and have used
the material every school day since then! It is such a nice program! It is even
neater than I thought it would be. My little student\'s progress will be slow so
we are only on Lesson 3. She (and I) love the CD Lessons and the CD Storybook. I
think you have just done a fantastic job on this reading program. The animations
are wonderful. I can\'t thank you enough for sending it to me.
Gail Hensler
The Reading Lesson is the perfect first reader.
It teaches the main concepts one at a time. The stories are fun. My son wanted to
read and reread them. The print decreases in size as the learner progresses, an
effective teaching strategy. The pictures are simple, clear and straightforward.
By teaching concepts instead of rhyming, the child learns quickly and reads using
sight words. Thank you writing a book that starts simple, is easy to use, grows
with my son, keeps his attention and reinforces key concepts. As an educator I am
very impressed. As a parent I am very thankful.
Ann O\'Brien, RN, MSN, San Ramon, CA
The Reading Lesson offers an easy-to-follow recipe for teaching children to read.
It takes a child with no reading skills to about second grade level in reading.
Never-too-hard and never-too-easy, step-by-step the lessons teach phonics and build
the sight vocabulary.
We begin the lessons with three to four sounds and introduce sight words as we go
along. Word recognition skills develop through the use of key words. Once these
key words are learned using Phonics, we encourage the child to read them as sight
words to gain fluency. Certain words such as you and do are difficult
to explain using the phonic principles. These and other non-phonic key words are
presented as sight words.
The Reading Lesson uses a controlled vocabulary of developmentally appropriate words.
The vocabulary of the program closely corresponds to the 500 most commonly used
words in English.
The Reading Lesson begins by teaching the most common letters in the English language.
That way, the child can begin reading words and simple stories from the very first
lesson. There are no boring drills. All reading is context oriented. You will hear
your child say, "Look, I can read!" after the very first lesson.
Often young children do not know the lower-case letters well. Realizing that ninety-five
percent of all letters in print are lower-case letters, we use only lower-case letters
at first. Upper-case letters are introduced later in the program. For children who
know the capital letters of the alphabet, the transition from the lower-case to
the upper-case letters is easy.
The Reading Lesson uses special typography. The letters are large in the early lessons
and get smaller as we progress. The words are spaced far apart, and page clutter
is kept to a minimum. We use special symbols to help the child learn the complex
and irregular rules of English pronunciation. Children often confuse certain letters,
such as b and d. There are special marks to help the child distinguish these two
letters.
The Reading Lesson is designed for children ages 4 to 8. Since most children in
this age group cannot follow if-then rules, or rules such as i before e except after
c, we have kept all rules to a bare minimum. Your child will learn these rules in
due course as part of the school curriculum. We do not even teach the difference
between vowels and consonants. As you will see, your child can learn to read just
as well without knowing any of these rules.
The Reading Lesson concentrates primarily on teaching the child to decode, that
is, to read. Decoding should not be confused with reading comprehension. Our goal
is to give the children basic reading skills so they can begin to read independently.
The Reading Lesson is a multimedia program to allow children to grasp the material
both from the CDs and the video with sounds and images, and through books that are
an essential part of this program.
The Reading Lesson is designed for any young child who shows interest in books.
Many unique features of this course also make it useful for older children with
reading difficulties.
The program is organized along lessons. It takes a child from no reading skills
to about the second grade level of reading in 20 lessons. And all it takes is approximately
ten minutes a day. *
*Each lesson are at least 15 pages long and takes a few days to complete. The speed would be highly dependent on each individual child.
Questions about LD and developmental delays, ask Dr. Michael Levin
Many children with dyslexia have learned to read with The Reading Lesson. The program is perfect for teaching children with low reading skills and reading difficulties.
The Reading Lesson is a highly structured program shown over and over again to work well for children with dyslexia. The Reading Lesson is neither costly nor complex. Any parent or teacher can pick up the book, with or without the CD-ROM, and start teaching. Children with dyslexia move easily from page to page and begin reading from the very first lesson.
Clean, uncluttered pages are particularly important for children with dyslexia who often have difficulty with concentration as well.
Marilyn King, Ph.D., of Oak leaf Center, Kennewick, WA who works with children with dyslexia uses The Reading Lesson in her school and offers the following comments....
- It is a full scope program while most are only phonic or only bits and pieces of reading programs.
- It never introduces a word without child knowing how to attack the word.
- Even children with severe dyslexia have not been bored by it or refused to work with the program.
Designed by a developmental pediatrician with years of experience working with children with dyslexia and learning disabilities, The Reading Lesson is the most advanced and natural way to teach reading.
Teaching reading to a child with ADHD
Questions about ADHD, ask Dr. Michael Levin
ADHD disrupts many aspects of children\'s lives; one of these is learning to read. An inattentive child does not spend enough time learning new letters and sounds and may never achieve reading mastery. There are many children diagnosed with learning disabilities whose only problem is lack of concentration.
There are many products on the market that teach children to read. There are very few that are friendly to children with ADHD. The Reading Lesson is designed for young children with high distractibility. The pages of the book are clean and free of clutter and the ADHD child is able to focus on the letters and words without being distracted by "busy" pictures so common in other books and software.
Why The Reading Lesson?
The Reading Lesson is neither costly nor complex. Any parent or teacher can pick up the book, with or without the CD-ROM, and start teaching reading to the ADHD child. The Reading Lesson software will not overwhelm your child with fast music, loud sounds, and irrelevant one-eyed monsters popping out of no where. Instead, step by step it will lead your steadily to reading mastery.
Designed by a developmental pediatrician with more than fifteen years of experience with ADHD children, The Reading Lesson is the most advanced and natural way to teach reading.
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