These techniques will boost your child's ability to learn to read, and you can easily use them in your reading routine at home! The techniques are easy to learn, and your child probably won't even notice you are using them!

According to the U.S. Department of Education,

♥ Reading to young children promotes language acquisition and correlates with literacy development and, later on, with achievement in reading comprehension and overall success in school. ♥

Pre-reading means asking "What is this book about?"

Before you read a book, Do a pre-read walk-through. That is another way of saying that when you sit down to read together, take some time to show her the book before you read the words in the story. If this is your first time reading a book, look at the front cover and read the title, then page through the pictures. Ask her to guess what the story might be about. The illustrations wil provide contextual clues for making predictions.

Make predictions as you read

While you read together, stop at key moments to say "what do you think will happen next?" Engaging your child in the story in this way helps you to get a feel for how well she understands the story. Ask her to turn the page for you and actively engage her in the process of reading.

Talk about the story

After you finish reading, ask questions that relate the story to your child. For example, if you were reading the Three Little Pigs with your child, and she had never been exposed to that story, you might ask "Which little pig had the best house? Why?" or "Which Little Pig Would You Want to Be?" By talking about the story and applying it to your child, you help your child to internalize what you read together. You are teaching your child to be reader AND a thinker. Those higher-level thinking skills play an important role in later learning.

Teach Your Children their Letters

First, teach your child the letters of the alphabet. Although this seems obvious, most kids in my community are not entering kindergarten with this knowledge. Does that shock you? It shocked me!

After your child has learned the alphabet song, go a step further and start practicing identifying letters. A good starting point is your child's name. Start with learning the first letter of her name. Then look for that letter everywhere you go-on billboards, license plates, and at the grocery store. Work on one letter at a time and she'll learn them all before you know it.

Get Ready for Decoding

One way children learn to read is decoding.

♥ Decoding means SEEING a letter, ASSOCIATING a sound with that letter, and then CONNECTING letter sounds together to form a word. ♥

Does your child know the ABC song? That is an early first step to decoding, but it is not the same as knowing the letters of the alphabet and being able to associate sounds with those letters. Knowing the letters of the alphabet could mean the difference between learning to read and struggling. Kids who read with their parents 15 minutes a day are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the crowd, no matter what your reading materials.

There are some things you can do now to improve your child's ability to decode words in the future. Two vital skills for learning to decode are letter recognition and rhyming.

Rhyming

Fill your reading with rhymes and rhyming books. Make a game of identifying words that rhyme. You could use pictures of items that rhyme, such as a bat and a cat and a hat, or you could say rhyming words and ask your child to say if the word rhymed or not. This could be a fun addition to your choice of car games on the long drive to grandma's house.

When my daughter was 4 or 5 years old, my husband made a game of rhyming words with pink, because she liked to drink strawberry milk. As he mixed up her glass of Strawberry Quick, he'd say something like, "Here's your pink drink, I'm putting it in the sink!" Soon she was responding "I'm going to wink and blink before I drink that pink drink in the sink, I think!"

Read books with rhyming text, and learn those nursery rhymes. I think some of the popularity of Dr. Seuss's stories comes from the satisfactory rhyming in his books. For example, the Cat in the Hat uses many three letter words that rhyme. I know many parents really can't stand Dr. Seuss books, and are concerned that reading them will corrupt their children, but as an early childhood literacy tool, I recommend them.

Read the Words!

Some adults I know will read a book to a child by looking at the story and making up the words. This is acceptable to do with young toddlers who have a very limited attention span. But I think pre-readers can find this practice very confusing. If your child is older than three and a half, you should concentrate on reading the words on the pages as they appear. You can also take your child's finger and gently guide her hand over the words as you read them. This practice is especially helpful if you are reading alphabet books, and helps kinesthetic learners whose sense of touch is linked to their ability to comprehend.

I like these techniques because they can be used to positive effect, even if you don't plan to take the next step and teach your youngin' to read early. If you are interested in this step, I recommend the book, Teaching Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons, which I currently keep as part of my permanent home library.

However, I feel that it is more important to instill a love of reading by exposing your child to great children's books that you both enjoy. Set aside a special time and place to read with your child. A big cozy chair where the two of you can squish together is just about perfect. Happy reading!

Thanks to the folks at supersimplesongs.com for sharing their video on Youtube!