How To Teach Reading To Children

Teaching a child to read is a process that should begin from the time your child can follow you as you point to the words in a story that you are reading to her. Once a child is able to follow your words and can even say the words with you, she is able to start learning to read. Although the child may be ready to read, she should not be pushed into reading. You begin teaching reading to children when you read stories to them at night.

You continue teaching your children reading when you play songs on recordings that involve the alphabet. The alphabet song is a very important first step in teaching reading to children. Many children can pick up songs quite easily while the alphabet song may make them hesitate. Reciting the alphabet in song triggers a mind development. Pointing to letters in stories and saying the letter of the alphabet that corresponds to the letter, is a visual and oral signalling to that part of the mind that programs speech. Teaching children to read phonetically should follow as letters and their corresponding sounds are connected in the child's mind.

That method is followed in the book "Hebrew from Scratch" which introduces a person to the Hebrew alphabet and vowels. Actually, in learning any new language, the alphabet is always the first step unless you are learning phrases to use while travelling to a foreign country. But, if you are learning to read in a language, there is no other way than to learn the alphabet and the corresponding sounds that letters make and the corresponding sounds that pairs of letters make. Phonetically speaking, learning vowels by repeating them and joining them to simple words build vocabulary.
Another way of teaching children to read is the look and say method which is currently used in many schools. The program was aimed at avoiding the more rigid discipline of learning to read phonetically. But, eventually, even with the look and say method, the beginning reader will have to learn to read phonetically when the vocabulary extends beyond physical representation of words to be read.
Books on reading like phonics and look and say are available at many colleges and libraries. A person who is just a beginner at teaching children to read would do well to visit bookstores and look in the children's department. A beginner reader loves books with pictures and words. As the reader moves to books without pictures, the need for phonetic development becomes obvious.