Read, Baby Read

 

I learned to make homemade Nasi Lemak from my mother, who learned from her mother, who learned from her mother….well you get the points. With each generation, traditions change and evolve slightly based on personal preferences, health concerns, or availability of ingredients. Well, she particularly loves to put a very large portion of Belacan and she believes that she is right in making a yummylicious chili paste. But I do have my personal reservations about using Belacan too much..I just..can’t.. Well, we probably have traditions similar to this Belacan thingy that we have altered over the years to suit our family's needs. It goes the same with reading. As I remembered, I never had any formal or informal home tutoring by my parents in teaching me to read. But today’s parent, it’s a must you know, because reading is so fundamental to all other learning in any curricular area! Parents who know a little about teaching reading can make a huge impact, you see. Education is important, in everything that our kids and ourselves do. Our job as parents is to step up and expose our kids as much as possible about the world around; of course by reading. I started reading with my 3 girls as early as 4 years old. Well it just takes time and patience. I hope these tips might help…

1.) Make time for your child In this fast paced world we need to make time for our children, let say, 20 minutes top! Between work, school, tuition classes, and whatever else you may have during the day, the time spent with your kid(s) is the most important! Kids have short attention spans anyway, so 20 minutes would be a perfect time to start reading every day.

2.) Have patience Every child learns at their own pace. How many times have you heard “Mama, penatlah!” or “Uuuwaaaa!”? If you are working with a struggling or reluctant reader, these words may be too common. The important thing is to create a fun and educational environment for the kids not pushing them over their limit. Patience is everything; your child may get frustrated with not getting something, but don’t worry, just take a break, or tell them that you will resume the ‘lesson’ later.

3.) Alphabet I started my daughter on learning her alphabet when she was 1 year old, though too young is no such thing. ABC wallpaper, mobiles, ect. can be used to enhance the alphabet to your baby. At about 1 year old, I wrote down all the letters of the alphabet, upper case and lower case, on a huge poster board and pinned it up in her room. Every day we would sing the alphabet and I would point to each letter as we sang them. Be sure to stress the importance of pronouncing ‘L,M,N,O, and P’.Do the alphabet chart before they go to bed, or whenever your time for teaching them is. ABC Coloring books are a huge help as well!

4.) Alphabet sounds After your child has mastered recognizing their alphabet, move on to alphabet sounds. We all know alphabet sounds, A makes the “ahh” sound, and so on so forth. Throughout the day, tell your child to repeat you when you say the letter followed by the sound of the letter. Make it fun. I.E. A says “ah” like this (act like you are going to the dentist and open your mouth wide and say ‘Ah’). My regular-yet-fixed-time of practising this is during teeth brushing!!Once your child sees that you are having fun, they will want to play more with you, and learn more too! Once you think your child has some of the sounds down, pop quiz them at any given time. “Mama doesn’t know what sound A makes, can you help out, please?”

5.) Time to read So, your child knows all their sounds do they? A-Z? Then this step is just for you! You get the GRAND opportunity to have your child read their first word to you! What an exciting time! Now they are all grown. My Mima's first reading book was 'Nenek Kebayan', I’ll never forget. Now Yaya started to read. My babies are reading!