Foundations to Teaching Every Child to Read
This is the first of many articles that I am going to do addressing the issues of reading and setting a good reading foundation for any child.
I am going to discuss such issues as “Everyone and Everything Teaches”, “Seeing Affects Reading”, “Listening Affects Reading”, “Talking Affects Reading”, “Ways To Grow Into Reading” and many more.
Learning to read and learning to read well and with enjoyment is one of the most important achievements in a child’s early intellectual life.
Parents are the key to opening the door to the confidence, satisfaction, and knowledge that reading provides.
Researchers are finding more and more evidence to indicate that a child’s character, personality, and intellectual disposition are practically formed by two years of age.
“Train up a child in the way he shall go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
“And thou shalt teach them diligently…”
Parents play a crucial role in the intellectual growth of their children and also in creating good and happy readers.
First and most importantly, you must realize that everyone and everything teaches.
You cannot stop your child from seeing, touching, tasting, hearing and smelling. BUT these senses must be guided. You don’t have to understand how the brain works to teach well. Good drivers don’t have to know how the engine works.
Learning is natural. Try to stop it!
The brain, weighs about two and one half pounds of tissue which is connected to the sensory modalities and has an electrical and emotionally charged base.
If it is triggered by a laugh, smile, wink, pleasant touch, pleasant voice or pat, the learning machine purrs and is happy.
With the introduction of frustration, anger, violence or rejection, it gets clogged and learning is adversely affected.
A baby becomes frustrated if not fed, changed or LOVED. A child can be daunted and crushed by too many “NOS” or too many whacks. Parents can unintentionally discourage a child with learning materials or even toys that are inappropriate to his age.
Children mature at different rates as well as their body parts mature at different rates. Mental development is affected by a child’s physical development and both are influenced by surroundings and inheritance.
“Train up a child…”
Surroundings offer the opportunity for learning. Doing what others do. The surroundings can be rich or poor. The bedroom of the child can have books, bells and balls – or it can be bare and boring.
Abilities are affected by inheritance but they can be enhanced or retarded by the quality of experience the surroundings afford.
Examine your own background as parents. Heredity may determine whether your child is aggressive, passive, insightful, thoughtful, impatient or impulsive.
Give your heredity garbage to the Lord and ask for wisdom in freeing yourself as well as your child from your inherited and his inherited emotional baggage and frustration. Supply him with a Godly enriched environment and educational opportunity. One you maybe did not receive.
Developmental Overview-The Infant
In the first year of your child’s life you will see an incredible process of differentiation occur. At first the infant will not know the difference between mother and father. But through the first year he not only learns to make these distinctions but to see himself as separate from the people and things around him.
During the first months of life a child physically responds to hunger, noise, and discomfort in one way; he cries.
He learns to display one obviuous and general emotion, excitement, by three or four months and he can learn to express both positive and negative excitement.
By the twelfth month he will be manipulating adults with a smile more than a cry.
Body control moves from the head downward during the first year. Neck and head muscles develop control before the trunk. This control travels from the “inside” to the “outside,” from the arms to fingers, from large muscles to fine ones. The child will go from no grasp to a firm grasp, holding objects between thumb and finger to clapping to a rhythm and even babbling a song.
The child matures from lying to grasping to crawling to walking.
The first year, let things happen naturally.
Encouraging performance before the physical readiness may retard ability. In other words, Don’t Push!!!
The One Year Old
The one -year old knows Mom, Dad, Grandma, definitely Grandpa, and DOMINATES all of them. Many walk by one, or at least stand alone.
The one -year old now walks into experience. He explores every room, nook and cranny in the house.
His pupils seem to be enlarged as he stares at things and people and information of every kind pours into his brain.
Adults are especially scrutinized, so be VERY careful of your behavior and those around you.
“Train up a child…”
From twelve to eighteen months a child concentrates on standing, walking, and stepping over obstacles with balance, and finally climbing.
During this period, a child develops from creeping to walking, to climbing and running. Before long he shows a preference from reaching with one hand. He can scribble in circles and play catch. He can walk backwards and is ready to operate a kiddy car. He will learn to fill and empty and pull and carry.
In the second half of this year, there is a shift to language development.
Between eighteen and twenty-four months, a child’s vocabulary will increase from fifty simple words such as
Hi! ; Hot ; Bottle ; No/uh.huh ; Spoon ; Daddy ; Pretty ; Boat ; Me too ; Baby ; Mommy ; Light ; Truck ; Hat ; Doggie ; and names of pets and family members, to more than three hundred words.
The Two-Year-OLD
He can walk, run, and climb. He then must “explore”.
He is beginning to speak but communication isn’t entirely effective. Mom and Dad and child quite often don’t understand each other.
He is coordinated enough to pile six blocks. He can climb up and down stairs alone and copy a vertically drawn line. He can kick a ball. He can carry a load. He does not cooperate at play except to play simple catch and toss with a ball. He holds and hoards and doesn’t like to share.
After two he will participate in art play, l haikes to see action toys work and he loves clay.
Toilet training occurs, and since he likes water play – WATCH OUT!!
He can fit pieces in a puzzle and fill and empty. He likes to touch, watch, imitate, and be dependent on his Mother.
Words, words and more words. He learns words easily and uses talk when he plays. His attention span is short. He responds to BRIEF commands.
The Three-Year- Old
He has learned a lot of forms and concepts and has been flung back and forth between frustrations and paradoxes. BUT HE MADE IT!!!
He begins to see himself with identity. He is more sure of himself and can begin now to understand that there are one or two people in the world besides himself.
When we see him control himself, we appreciate it. Suddenly, a whirlwind love and affection courtship develops, which makes the child’s behavior even better. He loves and is loved.
He has dominated the physical world. He now turns to the social world. He is so anxious to learn he even asks questions. “This go here?” as he helps set the table. “Hammer go here?” as he puts things away.
He walks with balance, not with arms outstretched. He can alternate standing on one leg. He can jump, march and run to music. He can unbutton. He can roll a ball and throw underhand. He can dodge, throw, stop and go and turn abruptly.
He can count to three and may even be able to point to three objects. He can compare objects and point out likenesses and differences. He enjoys building things. He can draw lines and even intersect them to form crosses. He can sort and combine and even WAIT HIS TURN!!!
He begins to share toys and become sensitive to people. He tries to please and likes to guess. He likes to get “dressed up”. He loves parties. He can rest for ten minutes. He takes turns. He talks to adults. He listens to stories. He enjoys praise and simple humor. He loves trips.
This is a great year – ENJOY
The Four-Year-Old
Expansion of mental energy. Thinking occurs. He can make up rhymes and loves big new words and explanations. Thought creates more growth.
He forms bigger and bigger words and bigger and bigger thoughts.
He can count to five. He points to the number “8” and says, “That is “66”!”
His world stretches to big and little fibs and tall tales. He calls names and threatens people he shouldn’t – like big brother and sister!!!
He is an expert at bugging adolescents. He always wins, doesn’t he?
He has the words in his head but he hasn’t learned the rules.
A cow can be purple. A tree doesn’t have to be green. Anything can be anything!!
Four-year-olds like skills. He is getting ready to be five and he talks about that. He is getting ready for school.
He wants to have “real” school and his own “school books”!!!
He can skip on a line and throw overhand. He is almost there in motor control. He is self sufficient in personal care. He is very social, poised and proud of what he can do.
He quotes Mom and Dad and any other authority figures like they are god. He likes rules if they have been laid down!!!
The Five-Year-Old
A child’s emotional pattern – the way he reacts to a problem, whether he is angry or happy, demanding or withdrawn – are evident. The foundations of his personality are already in place.
The five-year- old will generally take time out to organize himself. He has gathered in a lot of things in the past four years and needs to consolidate the gains. He will give a succinct answer, while the four-year-old embellished it.
The five-year-old has his place at the table, his bed, his bike, his hat, his universe, and can cross the street safely. Mother is usually the center of the world.
Physically, the five-year-old can sit longer, explore the neighborhood, lace his shoes, hang from a tree limb, and knows right from left.
Socially he is cooperative at play and enjoys playing house or trucker. He conforms to adult ideas and seeks adult help when needed.
“Train up a child…”
His interests widen swiftly and have a purpose. He asks, “What?” and “How?”. He knows his address and telephone number. He should be able to count and say the ABC’s.
This is the time he will play drums or cymbals in a rhythm band, build stores with blocks, be an animal trainer for the circus, visit the fire station and the green house, plant seeds and watch plants grow, cook for a seasonal party, play with puzzles, talk about new baby, nap on a rug, sing happy songs with fingerplays, be read to and have a place at a library table, hear Christian Mother Goose, and play active and quiet games.
Focus of all this – preparing for reading.
WHEN IS A CHILD READY???
When a child can do the activity. If you put a marble and a container in front of a child and he reaches out and plumps the marble in the container, there is readiness for that action.
If you stand him on his feet and he takes haltering steps, he is ready to walk and can learn to walk.
Before three, spontaneous behavior is the key to whether the child is ready to learn something particular.
Famous People With Reading Problems
Thomas Edison ; Albert Einstein ; Winston Churchill ; Michael Heseltine ; Woodrow Wilson ; George Bush ; George Patton ; Jackie Stewart, a racing driver ; Duncan Goodhew, an olympic swimmer ; Tom Cruise, actor ; George Burns ; Whoopi Goldberg, actress ; Susan Hampshire, actress ; Danny Glove, actor ; Cher, actress, singer.