How to train/ teach a kid to Reading and Learning?

[hquek]

My kids never took to those interactive books thingy (the leappad thing) - it’s just them. The way that worked was putting books within easy reach and putting stuff like ipads, iphones out of reach.


If you have distractions around, it’s highly likely the child will be attracted to those devices and turn away from books.

I buy a lot of books (used to patronise warehouse sales, and now buy online) and also borrow a whole lot more. If the child is fussy, and wants to, let him/her choose - else the parent can do the choosing and see what works.

Also helps to cater to their interests (eg characters, dinosaurs, whatever) - reading widely and diversely. Even if they read comics or books considered rubbishy (as opposed to classics), better they read than not at all.

[JY2011]

Yes, I agree with hquek. Doesn’t matter what book he/she picks up (of course must be those books/magazines suitable for everyone including kids). The first thing to do is to motivate them to flip the book and you can do story-telling or share information on what the content about. It takes times for them to sit and listen when we read. Even they just flip 1-2 pages is fine, just grab the chance to read or chat with them. Don’t force them to read for certain time also. Should end the reading session before they bored on it. Eventually, they will just want to learn how to read. For me, I grab any chance even taking bus and mrt on those signs and electronic board showing the station name or announcement in the bus and train. I just told my DD that what it is about and where we are now. It takes times for them to decode and recognize words then read books like adults. Every child progress is different, so just have to be patient. Better dun compare others with ur own kid but just be patient and continue what you suppose to do.


My DD starts to recognize words and read a bit now. It may take longer for her to develop her good reading skills coz she likes to choose books for older ages kids but herself still not ready to read. So we sometimes just read few pages for her and change another simple books. Sometimes, she just skips the reading for few days but her preschool does have library corner and reading session. So we are just doing in more relax way. Her reading books includes planets-Sun (simple one), Disney princesses, her preschool English Phonics, animals, preschoolers story books (but not series one yet). So basically, we are happy with her reading progress. Most of the books is from Library. She has quite good knowledge on planets, ocean creatures and public area senses (where is toilet, lift, mrt, bus… etc). So this is about the learning stuff which seldom be taught in the school.

Of course, for P1 preparation is more stressful I guess, probably the reading can start asap when they are young. I know some parents send their kids to English tuition class somemore. So the English level of the kids maybe better.

Hope this may help.

[sharonkhoo]

JY2011:

My DD starts to recognize words and read a bit now. It may take longer for her to develop her good reading skills coz she likes to choose books for older ages kids but herself still not ready to read. So we sometimes just read few pages for her and change another simple books.

What you are doing with your daughter sounds great. Just a word about the above - kids' language development is not even across all skills, and reading is just one of the skills. Listening develops the most quickly, followed by speaking, reading then writing. So you can always read to your daughter from books that she is not ready to read for herself yet as that will increase her understanding and vocabulary. There is no need to limit what you read to her to books that she can read herself as that can be boring. I read aloud to my kids a lot when they were young, and they really enjoyed books that they could understand but not read. We also mixed in simpler books that they could try reading too. My younger daughter, especially, very much enjoyed being read to even after she could read for herself. I read the whole Narnia series aloud to her when she was about 6yo! She was only able to read that herself about a year or so later.

[FortuneAG]

Thanks for giving really great suggestions


I think the reading tasks we can initiate and with a little coaxing and motivation, we can get them to read. How about the writing? My dd can hold pencil but only scribbles. I lose my patience to get her to write the letters: (

[JY2011]

Hi, slmkhoo.


Thanks for the sharing. I bought her a Disney princesses books with 4-5 stories inside coz she always wants to flip the books in the bookstore near her preschool. So she can choose what she wants to read. I teach her how to check contents, pages and go the pages. Simple stuff but get her ready to read her books next time. She even flips my DH's finance-related newspaper. So we din restrict her in any reading as long as no RA or violent content. So she actually enjoy reads not only English books but also Chinese books.

Btw, I am not a native English speaker/reader, I am not sure how to guide her to read book like Narnia leh... Although I also like the stories . :oops: I can only ask DH to read difficult books next time...

We must Jia You!

[JY2011]

Hi, FortuneAG.


For the writing part, we don't do much actually coz DD learns well from her preschool. So we actually dunno how she picks up. I ever tried to teach her myself. She is not listening and hold pen wrongly still (not too bad but not correct way to me). So I gave up then and it was when she just turned 3. We bought her some abc, numbers and chinese strokes few weeks ago as we notice that she can actually write abc and chinese strokes in the school weekly workbooks. Just a week later when we noticed her writing, she can write quite firm and good strength. Recently, she flips to chinese strokes pages with more complicated strokes, she can write by herself by guessing (some not correct ways, tried to correct her but not listening again). So I think her chinese teachers do very good jobs to guide.

I also notice that DD always tries to start to write with fingers even outside in anywhere when she sees big numbers or letters like in bus interchange especially while waiting for bus... :roll:

Probably, you should check and chat with her school teachers.

[JY2011]

Oh, I know DD’s preschool teachers use lot of materials (since N1) to let the kids practise the sequence of writing abc, 123 and chinese strokes (this one only started in N2) - during art and crafts session - decorate the big letters ABC on pages, board with beads allowing kids to move beads to write big letters ABC also. For chinese strokes, definitely more difficult - her chinese teachers sing songs or do in a fun way to make them remember the sequence to write. Also, DD likes her chinese teachers so she learns well from them… interest-driven a lot.

[JY2011]

One more thing about reading, when we read the older ages book, DD normally asks lot of questions and sometimes need to flip back to the previous page to explain. So when she reads, she also asks a lot to understand contents but I find it is a bit disturbing the reading… sometimes, I ask her to let me finish reading then she asks questions but not sure this is the right way…

[sharonkhoo]

JY2011:

One more thing about reading, when we read the older ages book, DD normally asks lot of questions and sometimes need to flip back to the previous page to explain. So when she reads, she also asks a lot to understand contents but I find it is a bit disturbing the reading... sometimes, I ask her to let me finish reading then she asks questions but not sure this is the right way.....

I used to do a combination. I wouldn't stop at every point they had a question, but if they indicated they needed an explanation, I would read on to a convenient point then answer. They can usually still understand enough to get the story, at least for a few more paragraphs or till the end of the event we're reading about.