Early Training for your Child in Reading
Reading habit is perhaps the most invaluable legacies you can leave for your child very early in life. A child habituated to reading will transcend to a much different level of intellect from other children of their age.
Once initiated into it, reading becomes a highly enjoyable pursuit for your child. But, you need to develop the skill of imparting this habit to the child. It is important to do this in a very natural environment in a matter-of-factly fashion. There are many ways in which you can inculcate the reading habit in your kid. Discussed here are about eight ways by which you can make your home a ‘reading home’.
1. Right from your child’s infancy, invest money on children’s books. As the child grows up ensure a lot of books stacked all over your home. This will trigger an interest in books in the subconscious mind of the child.
2. One of the most effective ways to develop early reading habit in your child is for you to make it a practice to do some reading yourself as the child watches. The next thing is that the child too wants a book to ‘read’. This happens every time you pick up a book to read.
3. Even when your child is an infant, develop a routine of sitting before the baby and reading stories aloud from the baby books. Soon you will see that the child starts developing a strong liking for this activity.
4. When the child shows inclination to handle the books, do not discourage. Give the child colorful picture books. It is perfectly all right for the little baby to drop, throw, tear and mutilate the book. Soon, all this will stop and the kid will start imitating the way you hold and use the book.
5. As you read the stories to your child, freely enact the characters and situations in an interesting way. The child will think that the fun that you are producing is part of the book. Your child will want to hold the book and read.
6. When the child grows up enough to understand your conversation, talk at home about reading and how kids become good by reading. How people like children who are good at reading. This gradually impacts the child’s mind and spark off a strong desire to read books.
7. When your child grows up into a toddler, visit the local library as a matter of routine. Take the child with you. Develop some literary games that can be played at home involving the whole family.
8. Finally, be sure to be very discreet in TV watching. It is a good idea not to switch on the TV in your child is awake. You need to remove this major distraction because this can foil all your efforts in order to inculcate the habit in your child.
As you keep implementing a few of these actions, your imagination sharpens to give you many more effective ideas to impart early reading skills to your child.
