Help your grandchild to read

Taken from “Miss! Miss!” ( a book in preparation) by Una Dowding who has over 50 years experience of teaching children to read

1. Sit at a table with the book well-lit, free from reflected glare and about I foot away from the child's eyes.

2. A right-hander should have the child to their left and vice versa. This enables them to point above the relevant line with their dominant hand. (We read the top of a line of print.)

3.A "pointer" of any sort should never poke at individual letters, but should be drawn smoothly along, above the line of print.

4.A "Reading Window " (obtainable from LDA Publishers, Cambridge) is helpful.

5.Always adopt a positive attitude. Never tell the child that a book is too hard for him/her, but that you will offer as much help as is needed.

6. If necessary, read aloud with the child. Read every word at a pace which retains the sense.

7. A child learns to read in many ways :- familiarity, from the accompanying pictures, a good guess using the context, similarity between words, or by using sound clues. All these methods are to be encouraged, as a reliance on one method often leads to undue hesitancy.

8.Learning to read is an emotional experience. It needs a quiet room (without distractions), your undivided attention, regular (but limited) sessions and your positive attitude.

9.There is never a valid reason for asking a child to keep on reading the same piece. Accuracy can be attained painlessly in several ways :-

(a) Read the page to the child, making deliberate mistakes, asking the child to bang the table at each mistake.

(b) With eyes closed, the child points onto the page, then reads the word closest to his finger.

(c) Child and adult read the same page silently, then in turn ask each other questions, (if sentences are used, this is preparation for writing coherently),

(d) Child is required to count the number of times a word, an initial letter or a simple

sound appears on the page

10. A small reward for, say, 20 points achieved retains interest and length of concentration.

11. Remember the importance of reading ability. While the child is willingly working with you, do not imperil progress by insisting on complete accuracy (unless the sense is being lost). Spelling and free writing can only develop after: a child has experience of reading,

12. It is important to go on reading to the child after he can read, as this stretches vocabulary and instills the "music" of language, forming a foundation for creative writing.

Enjoy yourselves. Reading should be fun