Parenting Blog

It is never too early to begin teaching your child to read, or at least laying the foundation for early literacy skills, and it can definitely be left too late!

If you are not sure then think about this. Statistically, more American children suffer long-term life-long harm from the process of learning to read than from parental abuse, accidents, and all other childhood diseases and disorders combined. In purely economic terms, reading related difficulties cost our nation more than the war on terrorism, crime, and drugs combined.

Reading problems are a further challenge to our world by contribute significantly to the perpetuation of socio-economic, racial and ethnic inequities. However it is not just poor and minority children who struggle with reading. According to the 2002 national report card on reading by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), most of our children (64%) are less than proficient in reading even after 12 years of our attempts to teach them.

image source : table4five

Do not be surprised if you see three-year-olds can read or five-year-olds like to read books. Teach children less than five years of reading are not a difficult thing, if done with the right methods plus the patience and diligence. Glenn Doman, author of How to Teach Your Baby to Read, has the answer.

Glenn Doman, founder of The Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, many years researching brain development in children, especially children affected by brain injury. He said, the brainchild, who had surgery even hemisferektomi (physical half her brain removed) could still have the same abilities of children with brain intact.

The brain child from the age of zero years, even in the womb so stimulate brain cells grow quickly. Hence, there is 2.5 year old child could read a book.

Physical development of the brain occurs very rapidly when the baby is born until the age of 18 months. If the child’s brain at birth is 25 percent of the adult brain (about 350 grams), at the age of 18 months of a child’s brain develops twice. A child’s brain continues to grow and at the age of six years has reached 90 percent of the adult brain weight. The brain development of children will reach 100 percent at the age of 18 years (about 1.4 kilograms).

You want to raise a reader. That much you know. But how? That’s the $20,000 question. You could probably spend that $20,000 on how-to books for you, readers for your child, flash cards and other accessories, and specialized reading programs promoting every possible avenue to full literacy.

You could, but you don’t have to do all that. The facts are simple. Between 80-85 percent of children learn to read by the middle of first grade and most of those children will learn without the benefit of fancy reading programs and books. Many of those children will learn to read as the result of simple preliteracy activities they encountered at home and/or school.

In fact, studies show that starting early is not necessary and could do more harm than good. Formal reading instruction, especially if introduced too early and if focused on “skill and drill,” can actually interfere with emergent literacy. However there are things you can do before you get to that point–and these activities are fun and can lay a strong early literacy foundation to make it easier for your child to learn to read later on.