5 Techniques To Accelerate Your Child's Literacy

We live in an information society and literacy is the key to success in it. Being a good or excellent reader will be a huge advantage for your child over the coming years.

Kids who enjoy reading often read 2-3 books a week, the same as some children read in months. So the advantage they have is increasing all the time.

So here are 5 things that will make a huge difference to your child's reading development. We employ all of them in our Easyread System:

TIP 1 - Don't Read Books

You probably think I'm nuts now! But we have seen so many children who have travelled down the wrong path, because of early reading books. It isn't the right way for a child to first start reading.

You see, a clever kid will look at an early reader book and memorise the words that keep being repeated, and guess the others from the context. That gives the impression of progress. But the child is driven to more and more guessing as the books get more complicated.

Eventually you will see a collapse of confidence at around 6 or 7 years old.

TIP 2 - "Dimensionalise" the Phonemes

Phonemes are the little sounds that make up words. And there are 43 of them in English. You can find them at the beginning of your dictionary. We need to make sure your child is familiar with them.

But they are tough to get a handle on. So the best thing is to create a visual image (with physical dimensions) for each one. That will make them much easier for your child to remember. For instance, we use the octopus that knocked a puss, the oak in a cloak, the owl with a scowl and the oon on the moon in Easyread for the sounds of the letter O. Those are much easier for your child to remember.

Our memories work mainly with visual images.

TIP 3 - Play These Games

So what should you use rather than a book?

Well, in Easyread we use games like these:

Build-A-Word. Take 6 plastic letters including 2 vowels. Revise the main sound of each one. Then say a simple 3 letter word that your child can built with these letters, like bed, dog, fat or mop.

Select-A-Word. On a piece of paper, write three similar words, like hot, hat, pat. Read one of them out loud and ask your child to select which word it is.

Nonsense Words. Take some plastic letters again, revise their sounds and write a word that makes no sense, like hab, fud, tem, wom. Then see if your child can read it.

Easyread-I-Spy. This is just like the classic "I spy with my little eye..." game, except that you use the first sound of the word rather than the first letter.

TIP 4 - Less is More

Never do more than 10-15 minutes of reading practice in one go. That is the most your child can do without losing concentration. Struggling on is counter-productive.

TIP 5 - Try Easyread TrainerText

TrainerText is how we let a child read unaided, while learning. The visual image for each phoneme in a word is floating above the text, so that the child can check if a word is unfamiliar. You can do the same with the images you have created in tip 2.

That will stop your child from getting stuck and is great for building confidence.

We see a new level of enthusiasm from day 1 and a leap in confidence over the first 3 weeks using these techniques. If you employ them, I am sure you will quickly see the difference.