What Is the Best Way to Get Your Child to Learn to Read?

The best way to help your child learn to read is start reading right away with your baby. Be consistent with time of day. and make reading a pleasurable experience. Start with phonics. Have many books around. You read he/she reads. It starts from the beginning. If you do not like to read or choose not to take the time out to read it will reflect. Chances are your child will regard reading as a choice not an adventure and will choose play.

Play is great for all of us children, but if we put off reading, the child in us turns off to reading. Turning off to reading closes doors to the world and things to do in it and we grow up and move on to living in the world where we are living not where we can go. We are stuck in our place where we live, avenues our parents have provided. As children we read when we absolutely have to unless we are bread around reading. If we aren't it will cause a struggle with meaning of words and phrases read throughout their lives. They won't even know the words they are missing to express themselves and will end up scavenging around to come to terms with their confusion of word choice. At this point in time their communication skills begins to suffer. Their confidence begins to wither playing havoc to their self esteem. The turmoil begins.

I say this now because I raised my child as a player, not a reader. Yes we read, but play far exceeded reading time. I am an outside kind of girl and showed him my way. The way my parents showed me their way. As a result of this, as he grew, he avoided reading more and more. I had to pull teeth to get through homework. His grades suffered. I could see that something was a miss because his comprehension skills suffered. I even sent him to a learning center to catch up on the missing pieces.

He only now is beginning to take note that he has to see his reading skills in a new light. He now knows reading is the key to an easier life of learning and communication. He now knows that reading helps him think clearer. I don't think he is aware of the places he has missed and the people he could have learned from in the books he never ventured in. Still, to this day, reading is a take it or leave it past time for him. He only picks up a book when he wants to know something. He reads like I read, when necessary.

My child is a man now. A very responsible, sensitive young man, a sweet talking, hug gable, caring and loving young man. In my opinion I did him injustice by not going the extra mile in a book. The vacations and places we could not afford to take him to could have been explored in a book.

My son had a very fearless, fun filled life growing up with minimal reading believe you me. Bikes, motorcycles, skiing, you name it he tried it. Ironically, his favorite book was 'Cars And Trucks and Things That Go'.

The best things in life are free. Thank God my son still has the opportunity to pick up a book and read and explore the world taken over by television and internet if he so chooses. The best tip for parents helping their children learn to read is mirror yourself and read, read, read.