Give your kindergarten child a head start with reading

Parents are often keen to give their children a head start with reading before they get to school. The best things to do are playing little listening games e.g. they think of words or even nonsense words that rhyme with a word you say e.g. what rhymes with 'cat'?.... pat, mat , sat, blat, tat, nat etc etc. or you can play a game where they tell you the SOUND that words start with e.g. ‘cat’ starts with a ‘c’, can you hear the ‘c’ at the beginning of ‘cat’? What does 'pop' start with?'

If you want to really help teach your children some early reading skills, teach the sounds that the letters make, not the names of the letters. While the little song ‘ABCD, EFG, HIJK, LMNOP, QRSTUV, WXY and Z. Now I know my ABCs, next time you can sing with me.’ Or whatever ending you know, sounds cute, it doesn’t help them one iota to read, by sounding out. So teach the letter sounds not the letter names and they’ll be ahead of their peers.

Does reading accurately mean a child can understand and recall what they’ve read?

For those of you whose children can already read, it’s vital to make sure they understand and remember what they’ve read. That’s the purpose and joy of reading. Many children ‘slip under the radar’ at school, because they can read the words on the page accurately. But a great deal of these children do not have any understanding or a recall of what they have just read.

That may seem unbelievable, but it is true. In fact, in the last many years, we have seen not only children but adults, who have very poor reading comprehension. Some reading programmes offered at schools only focus on a child’s reading accuracy skills, what are often known as decoding skills.

It is important that children learn to recognize sight words (i.e. high frequency words that are hard to sound out e.g. ‘are, the, when’) – this gives them some immediate success in reading. Once about 30 or so sight words are mastered (remembered), children then move onto sounding words out. Ultimately, once they master this skill, they can in theory, read any word they are presented with. But just being able to read words doesn’t mean you’ll be able to retain what you’ve read. If you are not making sense of what you’ve read, there will be no joy in reading - reading will be a purely mechanical task. Some children who struggle to master the mechanics of reading, put so much effort into that task, that they do not have any mental space to retain what they’ve just read. Children who retain what they’ve read, make images in their mind of what they read, as they read. You can encourage this, once they have some basic mastery of the mechanics of reading, by asking questions about what they think a character or a place looks like. See if they can paint a picture, with their words, of what they are reading.

Let me know how you go.

Developing Print Awareness

Encouraging ‘Print Awareness’

Print awareness is one of the first, very exciting stages in your child’s development of learning to read and write.

At about four to five years of age, along with your child developing speech and language appropriately, they begin to recognize familiar words in their environment. You can encourage this by drawing their attention to signs they may see frequently. These are words that we read and understand so automatically, it doesn’t occur to us to make any kind of comment about them … words such as ‘Ladies’, ‘Men’, the words ‘street’ or road’ in your neighbourhood, ‘Stop’ or ‘Give Way’. Even drawing your child’s attention to familiar symbols they see such as a 'round-about' symbol on the road or the ‘pedestrian crossing’ sign is the beginning of making a connection between a symbol (just like a letter) and its associated meaning. You can play a game in the car, seeing who is the first one to spot a sign or symbol.

Reaching Academic Potential

If your child has challenges with their speech or learning, the best thing to do is to get professional help.

But there are other ways you, as a parent, can help as well to
make sure your child excels and reaches his or her full potential.

Reading to your child, listening while he or she reads, gently
correctly when appropriate and generally spending more time
with your child will help your child grow in confidence.

And confident kids make better students.

Educational Christmas Gift Ideas

Gift giving to children nowadays seems to be getting way out of control!

Just yesterday I was speaking to a mother who was asking for Christmas gift ideas for her 3 year old daughter. When a doll, a book or a bucket and spade were suggested, she reeled back in horror. "Oh no," she said, "I wouldn't get those. She already has an i-pad and an i-pod, so those suggestions won't interest her at all."

Good grief, what will this mother be buying her daughter when she turns 12? ... a Porsche?

Children need to learn how to use their time productively, not have it filled by technology all the time. What this little girl will really benefit from is some quality time playing and interacting with one of her parents; reading a book; playing in the sand, building a sand castle; talking; listening; spending special, quality time with someone who loves and wants what's best for her. Not sitting alone with a piece of technology..... in my opinion anyhow. I know her mum wants what's best for her daughter, but has just been misguided into believing all gifts have to do something.

Let me know your thoughts and have a happy holiday season.

High school ... and how it all changes

Yesterday I took a referral from a mother of an almost 14 year old girl. She was in Year 7, just approaching the end of her first year in high school. She was worried because her daughter wasn’t learning at school. Primary school had seemed to go ok, but high school was a whole different kettle of fish. Her friends had dropped off and she was just not coping with all the changes involved with high school. Listening to this mother reminded me of just how much things change for our teenagers and for us as parents of teenagers. There is so much that is really exciting for our teenagers, yet so much they have to learn to become happy adults who reach their potential. Building their academic skills helps teenagers feel more comfortable about themselves.

I'd love to hear your comments. Leave me a message, if you have a moment.

Want to give your child the best chance to learn?

As parents, there are so many aspects of our job to master. Once our child is at the stage of entering pre-school or kindie, we are faced with how to ensure they learn and reach their potential.

Working in the field of education for the last 30 years, I've learnt some valuable tips for parents. The basics are really very simple. Ensure your child can listen and understand what others say. Be sure too, that they can communicate their message to others as well.

I'd love to hear your comments. Leave me a message, if you have a moment.