Of all our kids' intellectual milestones, learning to read may be the one that worries parents the most. We know that children will eventually talk, if we just wait until they're ready, and learn their colors from merely interacting with the world. But when it comes to reading, we place a lot more pressure on them -- and on ourselves.
Many parents, hoping to give their preschoolers a critical boost, try to ready them by buying lots of phonics workbooks and computer software; some even hire tutors before the first grade. how can we help our children develop that love? In order to figure it out, we must understand how we learn to read in the first place.
When you hear that a 5-year-old is "ready" to read, you may think that a special reading area of her brain has just clicked on. But it's more complicated than that. In order to read -- and fully comprehend -- text, several areas of the brain must start to work together.
Say you're reading the word "cat" (as you've done just now): Your eyes perceive the cluster of squiggly lines, and send the image to the area of your brain that attaches meaning to things you see. This information is then shuttled over to the brain's auditory area, so it can be translated into phonemes -- the K sound, the A sound, and the T sound. A third part of the brain, called the angular gyrus, then synthesizes the individual phonemes and their meaning as a group: the word "cat."
It's more than just phonics. A child who's really reading does more than just sound out a word like "cat." He must also be able to know whether a "cat" is a person, place, or thing; to comprehend the grammar in each sentence (Does the cat wear the hat or does the hat wear the cat?); to dramatize and contextualize the story in his head (cats don't normally talk and wear hats, do they?); and to empathize with the story's characters and understand the ramifications of their actions (that mom is sure going to be mad when she finds the mess made by that silly cat).
In the end, nurturing a love of reading isn't about having a precocious 4-year-old. It's about raising a 21-year-old whose whole life will be enriched by books. And that's a goal worth waiting for. As Mark Twain said, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
"HELP! My Child Can't Read" is one of the books in the market that will guide the teacher/parent step by step. There are checklist and milestones to keep track of a child's progress. Plenty of examples and guides are provided to further scaffold a child.
Look out for this book in our
No comments:
Post a Comment