- 1). Read to children often and at a young age. Choose books that are age-appropriate and meet the interests of the child. When reading to babies and younger children, select short stories with colorful images. Point to images and words in the book. Animate your voice while reading. Children will learn that reading is entertaining and important and will develop a lifetime love of reading.
- 2). Point out print items in daily life: signs, circulars, messages. Anywhere you see print, make note of it and read the words to the child. Doing so will emphasize the importance of reading in everyday life.
- 3). Engage children in activities that help them to develop phonics skills. Play games that involve finding items that begin with specific letters. Point to objects or say names of items and ask what letters they begin with. Sort items into piles based on the sounds they begin with. Play rhyming games; say a word and ask children to say a word that rhymes.
- 4). Build a sight word vocabulary in children. Sight words are those words that make up the majority of written text and that children should recognize on sight. Having a large sight word vocabulary leads to greater reading fluency. Present a specific sight word -- such as "at" -- then tell the children what the word is and present activities that allow them to identify the word. Point it out while reading, ask children to locate the word within texts, and ask them to record how many times they see the word in written text. Play games that involve identifying sight words, such as bingo, scavenger hunts and memory games.
- 5). Teach onsets and rimes. Onsets are the beginning consonant sounds in words, and rimes are the first vowel sounds and everything that follows. For example, if children are aware of the rime "og," simply changing the onset enables them to read several different words: "frog," "log," "dog" and "fog." The ability to decode rimes unlocks the ability to read thousands of words.