Several people have asked me about how Tiger learned to read at 5 years old (he is 8 years old now), so I thought I'd share my reply to them here, in case someone else finds it useful:
(1) Create the environment to support reading.
We
have tonnes of books at home. Books surround Tiger since birth, and we
read bedtime stories to him every night without fail, so that got him
used to the idea that books contain interesting stories about different people, different places, a different time, and different situations. Tiger
also had near-zero screen time from 0-6 years old, because we believe
the screens (TV, computers, phones) are major distractions to a child
who has more important things to learn, e.g. reading. Learning to read
requires a certain level of mental discipline,
at least to concentrate on 'non-moving' objects such as words and
illustrations, so it is best not to have the child exposed to screens
with constantly moving images before the child has learned to read.
When Tiger was 2-6 years old, we went to our local library twice a week, each
time taking out the maxmimum number of books that we could. All of us have library cards, so we are able to borrow over 50 books each time.
Besides having me read to him, Tiger also listened to audio books of
longer stories such as:
- the complete Winnie the Pooh
- the complete Beatrix Potter
- the complete Roald Dahl
Having
the audio books gave me some relief from reading to him all of the
time, especially when I was cooking meals. Tiger listened to the same
stories over and over again until he could memorise them, so a few
really
good ones would be sufficient.
(2) Types of books to read aloud to children
Always
go for the original, unabridged version. They are written in the
original complex lanugage that are far more interesting than any shorter
adaptation. When the child is used to listening to
complex sentences, he/she will automatically understand them without
reservation.
(3) Learning to read
I used a combination of the Montessori preschool language materials and a book called Teach your child to Read in 100 Easy Lesson by Engelman
everyday to formally teach Tiger to read. Both methods use the phonics
approach so they are complementary to each other. Each lesson took
about 15-20 minutes.
Once we got to around Lesson 70 of the book,
we started to borrow 'Learn to Read' type of books from the library as
part of our twice-weekly library visits. I then incorporated these
readers into our daily lesson. At the end of each lesson, we spent
another 5 minutes reading from these reader books. First, I would read
from the book using my finger to trace under each word as Tiger followed
with his eyes. After I had read it once, Tiger would then read it back to
me so that I could check his progress and pronounciation.
The important thing is to have easy access to
good books at this stage. All of our books are on open shelves within his
reach so he can help himself to them at any time. The first book he
read on his own was The Iron Man by Ted Hughes.
It wasn't during our lesson time, but one morning he
just decided to take the book and lay on the sofa with it.
This book is mostly words with very few pictures, so I was surprised to find him
with it two hours later. When he put the book back, I asked him whether
he was reading it and he said yes. I wasn't sure whether he really was
reading by then, so I "tested" him by asking him to narrate the story
back to me, which he did successfully. That was the start of
independent reading for him. Gradually, Tiger took over all the daytime read alouds for himself, but I have not stopped reading bedtime stories to him each night.
This post is linked up to:
1)
Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop #37
2)
Homeschool Mother's Journal: November 9, 2012
3)
Collage Friday
4)
Favourite Resources: November 9, 2012
5)
It's a Wrap
6)
Weekly Wrap-Up
