As a homeschool mom, or parent in general, you know that your child’s success in school depends on excellent reading and word comprehension skills. This gives you the ability to communicate and understand your studies well. When his reading skills aren’t up to par, and you see how frustrated he gets learning homework reading, you just want to do something to help him. This can be discouraging, but don’t lose hope. This is just a minus in the educational process. There are solutions and help.
Your child may need a quick trip to the doctor for an eye exam and a pair of glasses. It may be that he is new to the reading process and things haven’t clicked with him yet. If your child is just starting school and is not used to the structured discipline of a school setting (preschool or Sunday school), it may be his ability to focus. He could be bored. There are many things to consider.
Whatever the problem, find a way to make reading fun. Spend a lot of time with your child reading books and playing word games. Find books with stories that he loves. Point out the words in the story that he seems to repeat or that he gravitates towards. There is always a favorite book that most toddlers love to look at in pictures. Get him involved in the story line. Show him a poem and ask him to recite it. Make sure it’s a poem he likes. Ask your child to come up with a silly poem (you can write it for him). Create sentences with alliteration for him to play; Children always love tongue twisters.
For example:
- Minnie can fix my gloves in the middle of the morning
- Breesy Brie brings bran bread for breakfast
- Faith finds flowers for fun
There are so many teaching resources online now for you to access. Many of them have free prints; some have packages for you to buy. You could even make up your own games to help your child become familiar with words that are her age. A great resource my daughter uses is teaching her baby to read videos. These videos show children playing while having fun with words and songs. Although these videos are geared toward infants and preschoolers, they can help your child develop her reading skills.
Whatever you do (and however you can), make reading a joy for your child so that he or she will love it for a lifetime.
