Is there anything a parent wants more than happiness and success for their child?

In the modern world, a key ingredient to a child’s happiness is their success in school. Nothing contributes more to that success than reading and writing skills. Here are three questions that many parents have regarding teaching their children to read:

  • Should parents give their children a head start in learning to read? A child’s chance of being successful in school is low if her reading skills are poorly developed. Difficulties would accompany any reading deficiency your child may have.
  • Is it enough to hope for the best, i.e. is it risky to take a wait-and-see approach? Wouldn’t it make sense to take steps to ensure that your child can read at a level that allows them to focus on the many other demands of school?
  • What is the best way to teach children to read?

This article addresses the last question. Interestingly and unexpectedly, there is a sometimes raucous debate about which of the two approaches to teaching a child to read is superior: Phonics pour full language.

Phonics he proposes to believe that the best way to teach children to read is to give them the ability to ‘pronounce’ a written word and thus recognize it. They see the three letters in the word cat, they know the sound that each letter makes and thus they can discover, by chaining the sounds, that it is a word they know.

full language it is more difficult to describe. In essence, it focuses on meaning: generating meaning by reading; Express meaning in writing. It advocates a love of books, uses “guided reading” and encourages “reading aloud” in groups.

Fortunately, the debate is less heated than before, and few feel squarely on one side or the other. The most thoughtful compromise is some combination of the two methods: ‘Phonetics within the whole language’.

Long before any discussion of phonics: whole language, parents and teachers used a gentle and simple technique to teach children to read. It remains valid and even elegantly combines phonetics and full language. That technique is simply reading aloud to your child as he points to each word. Wonderful. But, it has two drawbacks:

  • a significant time cost, a problem for busy parents
  • does not fully utilize your child’s natural curiosity, energy, and burning desire to learn

Internet to the rescue. Now, there are web-based systems that help even very young children learn to read on their own. By necessity, any computer-based system must focus on phonics-based instruction because whole language instruction requires a patient and caring person to impart meaning and convey the joy of reading.

So whether or not you choose web-based computerized assistance to help your child learn to read, there’s still room, even in the modern world, for you as a parent to contribute the old-fashioned way: reading. while pointing out words and sharing meaning and joy, to this exciting and crucial part of your child’s development.

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