Want enthusiastic children excited to learn to read? Encourage them in 6 really easy ways!
Read on for my top tips on helping your child to learn to read and love books!
- Immerse them in a world of wonderful books!
Fill your house with books that interest your child, both fiction and non-fiction. The Book Club subscription books are always chosen because they’re beautifully illustrated and written, and I test them on my own kids! You can sign up for under 3s, 3-7 year olds or 8-12 year olds.
- Develop great memory skills
My son has always loved animals, so we’ve always had loads of animal encyclopaedias we pick up at charity shops and he got really good at memorising the photos of the animals – developing great memory skills is key for them to remember the phonics sounds easily and memorise non-phonetic words. Coincidentally that’s why I designed the Flashcards so you could play memory games with them. Click here to shop the range www.littlerobineducation.com/collections/flashcards
- Get in the habit from birth
Read every night before bed, even with babies. Let them choose the stories to read, and if they ask for more don’t say no (within reason…!).
- Teach yourself phonics
Get to grips with phonics for yourself – learn the letter sounds on YouTube so you can teach them to your child (here's a good video). Get some letter flashcards or make them (we loved the Animal alphabet cards from A-Z Menagerie on Etsy. Play games with the cards so it’s never dull.
- Reading comprehension
Ask questions about the story and ask them to retell it. This will help them in learning to describe and organise events and give them vocabulary to use when they one day come to write their own stories! The Book Club subscriptions really help with this – the activity booklets are full of ways to delve deeper into the story. We think of the play ideas so you don’t have to!
- Make reading fun and enjoyable
All kids learn to read at their own pace, the best thing you can do is make it fun! So try matching some toys to the pages to make reading interactive, or take your book outside with a blanket and hot chocolate to have a different sensory experience with reading. Do silly voices for different characters or you could add in sign language to help babies develop early language skills that they can copy (the Under 3 Book Club comes with sign language illustrations linked to things in the book!).