The earlier you expose your child(ren) to language the earlier they will become readers. Learning to read is a trained brain activity. While it may seem for some that reading is an innate ability that just happens, what is actually happening is the processing systems in our brain are functioning at an increased rate! This makes picking up language, oral and print, easily.
My son started to read words close to two years old and read books by the time he was three (he's four now). My daughter started reading words shortly after turning one year old and has been reading books a bit after one and a half years old (she's two now).
How is this possible? Follow this series of blog posts, "Grooming Stellar Readers" to learn how we are accomplishing this goal now.
In part eight of “Grooming Stellar Readers” we shared how you can create your own books for your little one. By including your child in the book in addition to what they experience, your little one will enjoy reading about themselves. Reaching this point has taken months and it’s not over. It’s time to introduce your child to decodable texts.
Decodable Texts
Decodable texts are books written with a focus on a particular phonetic pattern or word family. They are short, contain visuals that support the text and may contain phonetic skill questions that require your child to refer back to the text. Your child is zooming past sight words on the Dolch and Fry Word Lists. They are definitely ready to be challenged. It is time to start paying attention to patterns in a word that will help them read words successfully. Decodable texts are a great tool to practice this. I started my children off with CVC words. CVC is a one syllable pattern word and is usually the first pattern your child will be exposed to in school. CVC stands for Consonant-Vowel-Consonant. The words mat, dog, cat, lap, lot, lip, win are all examples of having the CVC spelling pattern in which the vowel has a short vowel sound. Your child is ready to read words with this pattern if they know and can identify all letters of the alphabet in addition to their sounds.
CVC words also lend themselves to word families. Word families are groups of words that share a common pattern. If your child is able to identify that the word cat has the word family -at, they can utilize this part of the word (called the rime) and apply it to other words that have this same pattern thus reading the word successfully. Decodable texts give your child the opportunity to apply what they are learning phonetically and also practice. A decodable text is not a one and done type of learning tool; another purpose is to work on fluency and automaticity. You want your child to not only read the words but have expression while they read, group words together so that there is a flow and automatically recognize words previously learned. It is all about building stamina and confidence in unison. Your child has come such a long way and it is only going to get better.
For a list of common word families visit here.
To learn more about how you can groom your child into a stellar reader, set up a free 30 minute consultation by contacting us at info@cuenye.com
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