Helping Your Young Child To Read And Write

One of the prime roles that parents play is teaching their children to communicate with them and others. By speaking and listening to your child, by talking and reading to him or her, by pointing out words and notices at home or out and about, you have introduced your child to the world of language – spoken and written. Here are some tips on how you can induce the habit of reading and writing from your child’s childhood.

1. Be a Role Model: Let your child perceive the habit of reading as an essential part of life and not a tedious activity that they need to do for learning.

Have a book shelf at home or a separate shelf for books and try and segregate them. Tell your child that these are your kind of book,s this is my section and this is your Dad’s or any other family member.

You must yourself read for your child to imbibe reading. Setting an example is the key here. If you don’t read yourself, it is most likely that they too will not incorporate reading as a habit in their lives. Also find time to read out your own favourite verses or passages from what you are currently reading. Let them see you reading and how much you enjoy reading yourself.

2. Accompany Your Child to a Local Library or Bookshop: Show them how libraries and bookshops can be a place of wonder and can open up whole new worlds of learning to last a lifetime. Introduce them to books that match their interest and hobbies.

Encourage your child to find books of their own liking, even comics. Let kids read what catches their eye and ignites their imagination as they build their relationship with reading. If it is comic books, it is okay if they start even with the worthless ones.

3. Encourage Writing: Ask your kids to write letters or emails to their relatives, no matter how young they are. You can help them with spellings and sentence formation where necessary.  You can get them to write birthday notes, anniversary notes, etc.

Also, you can ask them to write about their day on special occasions like a visit to the museum or a holiday trip and send it to grandparents, aunties and uncles. This will inculcate the habit of writing.

4. Encourage Your Child to Start Their Own Blog or Journal: Starting your own blog or journal can boost your child’s will to express themselves freely and have their literary juices flow. Ask them if they would want to read out excerpts from their blog or can share them online with you. You will build trust with your child and will get to know & understand them better.

5. Let Your Child Read Anything and Everything: Give your child the opportunity to read magazines, brochures, menu, newspapers. You can tell them to help you write reviews of restaurants online or when you go to one.

We hope you will like these tips. For more such tips stay tuned with us. 🙂