Preschool is the first step in your child's academic life, and it's a critical time for them developmentally as well. One of the most important things your child will be working on in preschool is developing the pre-reading skills that will help them go on to be strong readers later. You don't have to be a teacher yourself to help your child develop these skills. Your preschooler will be more enthusiastic about learning to read if they learn to love reading, and there are many ways that you can foster a love of reading in your child while you're at home.
Make Time to Read to Your Child
Although you've probably heard the advice before (and will probably hear it again from your child's teacher) the importance of reading aloud to your child cannot be understated. You may be surprised to learn how long-lasting the effects of these parent and child reading sessions can be. An international study of 15-year-old students found that the students whose parents read to them regularly in their early years scored 14 points higher on a reading assessment than students whose parents did not read to them regularly.
Despite the evidence of a long-lasting benefit, research from 2007 indicates that only about 55% of three to five-year-old children were read to every day. Simply reading aloud to your child is a simple way to get them used to develop their skills and teach them to enjoy reading early. Read together at bed time, bath time, after school, or even during a meal. Use it as a time to bond and relax together.
Set the Example
Children model the behavior they see in their parents. If you want your child to love reading, showing them that you love reading too is a good way to go about it. Let your children see you reading for both for pleasure and for other reasons. Talk about what you're reading in terms that your child can understand – for example, you might tell them that you're enjoying a novel because it made you laugh, or that you're happy to be reading a letter from a faraway relative.
Show your child that books are important in your house by bringing plenty of them into the house. Fill your bookshelves. Visit book stores and libraries with your child. Help them choose books for themselves, and let them see you excited about picking out books for yourself as well.
Connect Reading to Other Activities
Help your child relate reading to other fun activities in their day. If your child's most often-requested bedtime story is Three Billy Goats Gruff, take them to a farm or a petting zoo where they can see real goats up close. If they like stories about space and stars, arrange a trip to the planetarium. If there's a movie version of their favorite book, read the book first, then watch the movie together.
Get Comfortable With Repetition
Don't worry if your child wants to hear the same book over and over again, or only wants to read books about one particular subject. Repetition is an important part of how your child learns at this stage, so it's fine to encourage them to just follow their own interests at the moment.
If it's tedious for you to read the same books over and over again, consider downloading audio versions of some of your child's favorite books, or record yourself reading the book. You should still read to your child yourself, but the audio can make a good stand-in when you need a little break from a particular book.
Encouraging your child to enjoy reading at home is a great way to supplement what they're learning in preschool. Your efforts to foster a love of literacy in your child now will help them excel later on. For more information, hop over to this site, or others like it.
