Some parents miss a great opportunity to teach their toddlers to read from a very early age.
This could be because they underestimate their little ones ability to learn things really fast, or they just leave it to the teachers.
Well, there are several ways to teach your two years old to read, and we have put together some to help you with it.
Read to Your Toddler
You really should do this often regardless of how young your little one is.
Read to them as often as you can, in fact, make it a daily activity. It could be a bedtime story or something else that is fun and exciting.
Doing this introduces them to words and printed text, it also makes them familiar with stories.
You can use your index finger to point at each word, drawing their attention to them.
This also helps them know the direction to read.
Assess Your Toddler’s Readiness to Read
Try to know if your little one is ready for reading lessons.
Children at this age are best taught through fun and exciting activities.
Make sure that the reading lessons are short because two-year-olds have a short attention span.
If you notice that your child just isn’t interested, don’t push them too hard – try again in a few months time.
Getting them interested in reading is the goal, so might want to be gentle and easy on them.
Help Your Toddler to Develop Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is a key component of teaching your two-year-old to read, and it is important that they develop it as part of their literacy development.
Phonemic awareness is a necessary skill as it helps a child to recognize the small components of letter sounds.
You can help your two years old develop phonemic skills by singing phonics songs to them, and by having them listen to phonics songs. Phonics toys too can help.
Phonics and Phonemic Awareness Based Reading Program
There are quite a number of reading programs for babies that help teach them to read using the whole word method.
This method involves flashing several words and pictures before their eyes, and by repetition, they are able to memorize and recognize words and phrases.
However, many parents prefer phonemic awareness based programs that focus on the sound of letters or where kids are taught to decode words, sound out letters, and combine letter sounds to form words.
This will allow your two years to successfully sound out words that they are not familiar with all by themselves in the future.
Several studies have shown that phonemic awareness based programs are successful in producing fluent readers.
Two-year-olds with the right nurturing can learn to read – if you are a loving and patient parent (which we know you are), and you are willing to take your time and follow a step-by-step approach of an effective reading program.
Your child will eventually grow up to become intelligent and top of his or her class with the right reading programs.