How does our child learn to read !

Learning to read can start as early as 9 months old!  You don't believe me, watch this:
Your Baby Can Read Program !

Also now in schools in the UK, Australia, USA & Canada, the lattest proven method of teaching kids to read and to write is based on the below mentioned process of a child's early learning of reading & writing. It can be used starting 2-6 years of age.
Jolly Phonics !


In order to understand how these programs work, we need to understand how a child learns to read:

The Beginning Roots:
•Children begin to learn to read before they are even able to recognize a single letter. Throughout the first few years of life, children are exposed to sounds and rhythms in speech. These patterns help them develop an understanding of how words are formed and the individual sounds that compose the words.

Language and Literature's Role

•Exposure to language and literature is essential for a child to learn to read. As an infant and toddler, a child integrates the sound patterns in words and starts to develop phonemic awareness---an understanding of letter sounds and how they fit together in words. From the earliest ages, children learn that certain words rhyme and that there are rhythms to language.

Learning Phonics

•As children finish kindergarten and move into the first stages of learning to read, they starts to recognize individual letters and the sounds they make. When exposed to written letters, children start to associate the appearance of the letter with the sounds with which they have become familiar. This process is the natural continuation of the earlier phonemic awareness. Phonics---the relationship between letters and the sounds they make---is the cornerstone of learning to read. Children first learn to correlate the appearance of a letter with the sound it most commonly makes, then move on to combinations of letters to form patterns of sound.

Decoding

•Once phonemic awareness is solidly in place, children learn to decode words more quickly upon seeing the letter patterns. This ability to visually connect the letters and combinations is called "the alphabet principle." Practices that help a child learn to read include repeating rhyming words and breaking down the words into "taps"---one tap for each syllable. Also try repetitive visualization and pronunciation of common letter combinations such as "sh," "ch" and "st."

Sight Reading

•After children can reliably phonetically sound out basic words that follow the rules of pronunciation, they begin to work on sight reading. Some words in language cannot be phonetically read and the child must learn to read them simply by looking at the word as a whole. Sight reading is a process of memorization.

Maximizing Reading Potential

•To optimize children's ability to learn to read, provide early and frequent exposure to written language. This process is ideally begun before kindergarten. By that stage, the child should have a solid foundation for beginning to learn to read.



Want to know more about those two programs and how to apply them at home if you want!
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Character Stations

How to talk with your Baby before your Baby can Talk !

Babies have the gift of curiosity and thirst for knowledge. What if you were able to understand what your baby was thinking about, and provide an enriching interaction based on that knowledge? The Baby Signs® Program allows you to do just that!
Babies can learn and use simple hand gestures, or sign language, to communicate what they need, what they want or what they see as young as 5 months old. Imagine if your 6 month old told you she wanted to nurse without crying, or your 11 month old told you he saw a dog across the street without grunting, or your 14 month told you the side walk was too hot for her bare feet without screaming!
This basic ability to communicate before they can talk, gives babies a great boost to their self esteem, helps parents and caregivers appreciate the intelligence of their babies, and can dramatically reduce the frustration that parents and babies experience when communication is difficult.  Intensive Research demonstrates using signs with pre-verbal babies helps them learn to talk and gives them a jumpstart to their intellectual development in addition to other Benefits.

Watch this !!!
 
You can take classes and you can even start at home.
HOW ? ... @ Character Stations !!!

Character Stations

Early Learning is not for "Show Off", it's a science !

  Some parents - especially mothers - think that Early Learning is a luxury that we can work on with our kids, so that it would feel nice showing off what our kids "know" that others don't.  Well, that is not really what Early Learning Programs are all about !
Learning should be about the child, not about the adult keeping up with other people’s children or proving herself or himself as a perfect parent or caregiver.
Early Learning should help your child understand his or her experiences, not fill their heads with facts through “drill and kill.” And when children are actively involved in what they are learning in a hands-on way, they remember more.

    Research on the development of young children, including their brain development, creates a great deal of interest in early learning, with many positive repercussions. Studies show that “real” learning doesn’t “wait” until children enter school. The early years are critically important learning years.

So again, what is Early Learning or Early Childhood Education are all about !

Early childhood education is the organized sequenced practice of educating at one of the most vulnerable stages in life. According to the NAEYC & UNESCO ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) Unit  (National Association for the Education of Young Children), Early childhood is defined as the period from birth to 8 years old. A time of remarkable brain development, these years lay the foundation for subsequent learning.

Early childhood education often focuses on children learning through play.
The terms preschool education and kindergarten emphasize education around the ages of 3–6 years. The terms "early childhood learning," "early care," and "early education" are comparable with early childhood education.
Researchers in the field and early childhood educators both view the parents as an integral and inevitable part of the early childhood education process. WHY ? Because children learn through their important relationships(social learning); they learn when they feel good and are engaged and motivated in what they are learning (emotional learning); and they learn when they are making sense of their world (intellectual learning) ... So, no one would disagree that the security and warmth of being around one's own parents provides the best atmosphere for our kids' Early Learning.
Let me rephrase this again : No one should ask brave working moms to stay at home and provide "the atmosphere" for their kids learning ... all am saying is that parents (and that highly includes daddy too)should be an integral part  of the early learnig.  An hour or two with parents who have the right tools for their kids' right age bracket is better than a whole morning at the best knowledgeable and most professional daycare in town.
Much of the first two years of life are spent in the creation of a child's first "sense of self" or the building of a first identity. This is a crucial part of children's makeup—how they first see themselves, how they think they should function, how they expect others to function in relation to them. For this reason, early care must ensure that in addition to employing carefully selected and trained caretakers, program policy must emphasize links with family, home culture, and home language, meaning caregivers must uniquely care for each child using Developmentally Appropriate Practice, Individually Appropriate Practice and Culturally Appropriate Practice. Care should support families rather than be a substitute for them

Early childhood education takes many forms depending on the beliefs of the educator or parent.
Some of the most popular resources and programs are available at Character Stations and will be posted soon ! So, keep on following us !


Character Stations