This is one of the most important and difficult skills your young child will undertake. You begin the process early with helping him learn to speak and reading out loud to him. Here are some good resources for helping your child learn to read.

Reading Aloud Everyday from Birth Onwards

The American Academy of Pediatricians has issued a policy statement encouraging pediatricians to promote literacy by encouraging parents to read aloud to their children from birth onwards. Read the post: Read Aloud Everyday

Also read the original article by the Huffington Press.

Why reading to your baby is so important, gives lots of reasons and ways to read to your baby and growing child.

Teaching Sight Words

Sight Word Flash Cards  from Parents.com are a free download of printable flashcards. These are the 200 most frequent words that cannot be sounded out with phonics. When children learn these words, they can read much more fluently.

Be sure to stop by the Mr. Printable page for many more options. You must sign into the site, but no personal information is required.

 Teaching Toddlers to Read

The mom of a 22 month old asked me recently what she should be doing to teach her child to read. Her daughter reads words that she has never been taught. She was saying, “Moot,” while pointing to an apple juice bottle. Her mom had never referred to it as anything other than apple juice, but the brand name was Mott. Is she reading and what should this mom do to teach her daughter?

Recently an infomercial aired in the US for Your Baby Can Read. It sounds like a great idea, but is it worth the money and time?

Researchers are agreed that the neural pathways necessary for decoding letters then mentally combining them to form words are not ready until around 5 years of age?

So, who is right and what is a parent to do?

Read more. . .Teaching Toddlers to Read

The Role of Memory in Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension involves a variety of neuro-developmental functions, including attention, memory, language, and higher order cognition. In this post, we’re going to focus on the role of memory.

Memory:

While reading, we must hold important information and concepts in our minds. We must process words, sentences and paragraphs together in order to gain full meaning of what we’re reading. In addition, we must call up relevant information we already know. Memory is essential in helping us comprehend as we read, make associations between prior knowledge and new information, and remember that same information at a later time, such as during a test.

Here are some possible signs that a student is succeeding with the memory demands of reading:

Read more at: All Kinds of Minds Blog

 How to Read with a Beginning Reader

Most beginning readers are inconsistent. Learn more about the characteristics of a beginning reader and simple techniques and tips to nurture your child’s skills and joy in reading.

Sometimes parents of beginning readers wonder if their child is on track with reading. They don’t understand why their child can’t read a word today they were able to read yesterday. They think their child reads too slowly. They grumble that their child only wants to read the same book over and over again.

Most beginning readers are inconsistent. They may know a word one day but not the next. They may read a particular word correctly on one page, but they have to stop and sound it out again on the next page. When you listen to a beginning reader, you hear short, choppy words with little attention to punctuation. Sometimes a new reader can tell you very little about what they just read.

At the beginning stage of reading, all of these reading behaviors are to be expected. Beginning readers are building their fluency. This means they’re working to make several skills, like matching a letter to a sound and decoding, more smooth, accurate and automatic. Without fluency, each word must be decoded, and that takes time and energy. This means that other reading behaviors like reading with expression and comprehension have less of a focus.

Learn more from: Reading Rockets