ystematic teaching of the mechanics of written language. That is, the teaching of letter sounds, letter combination sounds, the rules of putting these combinations together, and then sounding them out to make words, sentences, and ideas. Phonics seems to work well with most children. However, if phonics is used in isolation or used inappropriately, children can misunderstand what reading is all about. For example, children should not be forced to sit for extended periods of time with a deck of flash cards to drill phonics into their minds. This can cause children to decide they don’t like reading, and so avoid the opportunity to try and read. When a child is born we immerse him in spoken language. We coo, babble, and talk to and around our children from the day they are born(McKewon, 1988) Almost every moment of their lives, they are surrounded by spoken language from radio, television, siblings, and adults. We immerse them in spoken language and they naturally learn to speak. Although this works well with verbal language, written language is not that simple to learn. Children should be excited about learning to read. Parents should create activities that can help create a desire for children to read. There are many things that can help your child get ready to read. The next few pages are devoted to ideas that can help children get excited about learning to read.Helping Children Get Ready to ReadRead to your child everyday. Take the time to cuddle up with a good book and read to them. Make sure to point to the words and pictures as you are reading. When ready, the child can point to the words as you read them. Ask questions about the story and the characters to help build the child’s comprehension skills. Have fun together with songs and nursery rhymes. Sing rhyming songs, have fun with tongue twisters, and read poems together. These activities can help children pay attention to the sounds in words.Learnin...
