Reading: How to teach my grade 1 child to read

With Covid -19 upsetting our lives and the school calendar constantly changing, many parents were either forced to or have opted to home school their kids. 

Today I will share some advice on how to teach a child to read. Please do remember that every child is unique. What works very well for one child might not work as well for another. That might mean that you will have to try different methods. Be patient and keep on practising.

Reading material

Make sure you choose age appropriate books for your child to read. It can be very disheartening for a child if the book he/she has to read is to difficult. Rather begin with a book that is easy for your child to master. It will build his/her confidence. If you are unsure of what  is age appropriate for your child, the Department of Education has free readers that can be downloaded on to a tablet or you can print it out. It is also divided into grades from easy to more advanced. You can find it here: https://www.education.gov.za/Curriculum/LearningandTeachingSupportMaterials(LTSM)/GradedReadersandBigBookHL.aspx

Vowels and consonants

Make sure your child can distinguish between the different vowels and consonants. Make him/her practice by sounding aloud. 

Sight words

The next step would be to make small cards with sight words from the story you picked. I picked the following story from the Department of Education website (mentioned above) to use as an example:

You will notice that many words are repeated. You need only make one card for each word. Just make sure you can build sentences using those cards. If  you are Afrikaans you will inevitable have to make 2x 'nie' because of the double negative. I would use the following words from the story above:

 'Do, not, play,with,electricity, medicine, stay, away,from, hot, things,touch, them, matches, or lighters, fire.'

Give your child one or two words a day to learn. You can put them up on the bedroom wall so  that he/she can constantly see it. Once your child can recognise most of the words, let him/her make their own sentences. Make sure they understand what the words mean. When you think he/she has mastered the words, you can give them the story to read. If your child can manage the story fluently, it is time for the next story. Look for a story with similar words. You now only have to make cards for new sight words or words your child still struggle with. 

Practice

I cannot emphasise this enough. You have to practice everyday. Reading, just like any other skill takes practice. The more you read, the better you will become. It is not going to happen overnight. You have to be patient. 

Set an example

Read to your child on a regular basis. It will help your child with pronunciation. Make time to read by yourself. Children like to imitate grown- ups. If they see how much fun it is to read, they will automatically put in more effort to practice reading. 

Remember to have fun. Reading should not be a chore, but a pleasure!