Giving Your Kids a Headstart on Reading

Most homeschooled kids start reading very quickly simply because they have one on one attention. It`s a lot easier to learn something when you are the only student being focused on! However, reading is a skill that isn`t always easy to pick up or even that exciting for some children. How can you get your kids interested in reading right from the start?

Read to Them

Even infants love books. They enjoy the bright pictures and while a baby might chew on a book more often than she looks at the words, it`s all part of becoming familiar with the concept.

Bedtime stories are a fun way to create a routine and instill an interest in books, but that shouldn’t be the only time you read to your children. Stopping for a story while dinner is in the oven or making time to read a short article together during a break is a very good way to incorporate reading into their everyday lives.

Read Yourself

Seeing Mom and Dad read will make your younger children want to try it, too. My sons frequently sprawl on the floor with their father and “read” the newspaper with him, or snuggle up next to me on the couch while I flip through a magazine . . . they bring their own kid-friendly reading materials and we all enjoy some quiet reading time together.

Point Out the Usefulness

We use reading skills every day and letting children know that will tend to get them more interested in the idea of reading. Show them how you read the recipe for making a cake, point out the labels on food, and let them know that your notes help you remember what you were going to do today.

Early reading with your child helps establish some basic concepts long before your little one is actually ready to sit down and read. These include:

• Reading is left to right
• We start at the beginning of a book and move sequentially through the pages
• Letters make words and words tell us stories
• The print on a page relates to the picture

If you aren`t reading much to your children yet because you feel they are too young, know that now is the perfect time to establish a love of reading and you`ll reap the results later when they are ready to start studying.

Tags: homeschool, reading