How to Improve a Childs Reading Skills with Easy Strategies and Techniques

Being a successful reader involves the use of several strategies or techniques that are used interchangeably and simultaneously. Helping children who are early readers understand these strategies and allowing them to apply these skills while reading booksor other reading material will have a positive effect on any childs education.

Understanding these strategies ourselves is the first step any parent, teacher or tutor should take before they begin the journey of teaching a child how to read.The following information is a brief summary explaining two of the more basic strategies that will help an early reader be a successful reader.

• Look at the Pictures for Clues The first reading material a child will begin with will have pictures. It may seem like using a picture to decode words isn't really "reading", right? In a sense that is true. Looking at a picture is not helping a child actually decode words by way of letters, but it is one of the strategies every literate person uses. As adults, we use a variety of clues, even pictures, during the reading process. For example, you see a sign with pictures of dogs and cats on it. Unconsciously, you will use that information to help you read the sign. Most likely, your brain isn't going to expect a slew of words relating to auto parts or computers, because that wouldn't make much sense. So the process of reading has already been put into motion simply by noticing the pictures. This is one of the easiest strategies we can teach and remind early readers to use as they develop their skills.
• Sound It Out? Unfortunately, this is usually the first technique people like to instruct children to use when they get stuck on a word. Actually, it's not rreally a strategy that will be used frequently as a reader develops their skills and begins to read more fluently. Words such as, dog cat pig are words that the "sound it out" approach can be applied to and will work for, but most of the words adults, or even early readers, encounter don't follow suit. For example, see how many words on this very page you can find that apply to this rule alone....meaning, every letter in a word makes the phonetic, or alphabet, sound while you are pronouncing it. Not a whole lot, right? So you can see that although this strategy can be applied to some words, teaching it as one of the first strategies an early reader should use won't provide help majority of the time. Limiting the use of this prompt during instruction will save much unneeded frustration for both the reader and teacher.

Teaching literacy can be very challenging. If you make the assumption that because you yourself are able to read you will be able to teach a child how to read, you may be setting yourself up for some frustrating encounters. I encourage anyone who has a child, student or friend that would like or needs some reading instruction to do just a little research on the subject. You will be amazed at how simple and rewarding the experience of teaching reading can be. Even if you only have an understanding of a few strategies or techniques, you'll be able to help someone who will appreciate it.