Which Method Should You Use To Teach Reading to Your Child?

Question

When teaching reading, it is usually most effective to use phonics as the main method. You can add sight words as well to help kids memorize the words they can't sound out with phonics alone!

Answer 1

You could do a few things depending on what your child needs. First, you could partner read which is taking turns reading a page or a paragraph. This way the child hears how it should sound when read aloud correctly. Second, If you want your child to have more practice, he/she could read 100% of the book aloud to you while you help with pronunciation and unknown words. Third, there's radio reading, when you say a phrase with intonation and the student repeats it back to you just as you said it. My students and I really enjoyed the Novel Effect app, too, which listens as you read aloud and adds sound effects as you go.

Either way, 100%, 50%, or mimicking, it's important to understand what is being read, so you want to ask questions and discuss the plot, characters, setting, unfamiliar words, and possible themes as you go. You could Google the book before reading it, get some analysis before hand, and guide your student to discovering themes and noticing important scenes in the novel.

Students mostly struggle with vocabulary and complex sentence structure, so having a list of words and their definitions for a text is good. You could ask AI to make you a vocabulary list for each chapter, too. When you encounter something confusing, it's important to stop and break it down until it makes sense.

Happy reading!