Value Bookshop's Reading Notes

Almost all parents take their children’s education seriously. However, different parents have different ideas on how to educate their children. For example, some parents believe that children should be taught to read even when they are babies. Others believe that children will learn to read when they enter preschool or kindergarten. There are also parents that believe there is no rush in teaching children to read. They will read when they are ready.

Here is a very interesting article, titled “Can a child be too young to learn to read?” It was published on Times Online. You know how different schools or governments have different school curriculums for children? Well, in Wales, children get to play until they are 7 years old. Yup, they are following a play-based curriculum. Now some of you probably think, “WHAT? No studying? Just play? How are they going to learn to read?” However, a mother whose 5 year old daughter is going through the system has only good things to say about it. She says her daughter is stimulated and enjoys school. Apart from outdoor play, there are also opportunities to read. I like that idea. I believe before you can teach a child to read, you must first instill the love for learning and then surround them with books.

I also want to point out in that article, a quote by Prof. Pamela Sammons. She’s with Department of Education at the University of Oxford. She says that you can make reading fun, for example you can play with letter sounds, nursery rhymes and songs. It’s funny how we parents always think that fun and learning cannot co-exist. In actual fact, children learn best when they are having fun, not sitting down quietly on a table doing rote learning.

As for me, I try to read a lot to my kids, starting when the are babies. When I go to church, I bring books to keep the occupied instead of toys. I also sing a lot of nursery rhymes. Instead of teaching them A-B-C, I teach them the sounds first: /a/ /b/ /c/. I guess you can say I work on building their phonemic awareness. This makes things easier when I start teaching them phonics when they are about 3-5 years old. I find that my kids’ ability to blend sounds only begin about 4-5 years old. Before that the focus is on learning beginning sounds.

So far, my kids don’t “rebel” or show disinterest when I teach them to read. Of course I follow their lead too. If I’m teaching and they show disinterest, I stop. If you ask me what is the best age to start teaching your child to read, I would say that depends on your child. My approach is to surround them with opportunities to learn to read and when they are interested, teach them. My 3 year old son right now would take books and ask me “what is this word?”. Obviously, it’s a sign that he wants to read. So, I am now teaching him some phonics and also recognizing high frequency words. Even though he has shown interest in learning to read, play is still his #1 learning tool. At his age, teaching sessions are about 10-15 minutes. Since I’m not the most highly organized person, these teaching sessions are quite impromptu.

So what is your idea of the best way and age a child should start learning to read? What are some things you have done to get your child reading? Should children start learning to read early? If you start too late, will that have negative consequences later on? Do you think playing too much is detrimental to their learning? Do share your thoughts.

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