Pre-Reading Skills Your Preschooler Should Know

Learning to read is a big step in a child's young life. Most children learn to read in kindergarten and will continue to work on this skill during first grade as well. Learning to read is a lot of work for the child and the learning should continue at home as well as at school. Teaching your child to read can be a scary thing for a parent. Your child's teacher should send home activities for you to do with your child. Research has shown that there are five areas for a child to learn to read. They are phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary and fluency.

Phonemic awareness refers to the structure of words being made up of sounds. Your child will need to learn that words are made up of different sounds that can be used in different sequences to make new words. These sounds can be single letters or letter blends of two letters. Your child will learn these sounds and use them like blocks to build new words. At home, you can help your child by telling nursery rhymes and poems with rhyming words. Play rhyming games with your child at different intervals during the day. Reading books with rhyming words also helps your child learn phonemic awareness.

The second step in learning to read is phonics. Phonics is the ability to distinguish between vowels and consonants and the understanding that letters combine to create new sounds. Phonics are very important in learning to read, but phonemic awareness must come before phonics in learning to read. You can help your child learn phonics by teaching them what letters make what sounds. Ask your child frequently throughout the day what letter starts a certain word. Or just ask what sound a letter says. Teach your child that vowels have long and short sounds depending on the word.

Comprehension doesn't seem like it is something that can be taught, but like many other skills it can be taught. Comprehension in pre-reading refers to the child's ability to understand what they have just read and not just decode a word. Practice comprehension by reading to your child and asking questions about the content. When your child is reading independently, ask questions about what happened in the story. Children who have good comprehension are also skilled at predicting what will happen next and form questions about what will happen next. It's important to teach your child to identify what parts of a story they need help with comprehension and to reread that part to better understand it.

The fourth step to pre reading is vocabulary. Vocabulary is simply knowing the definition of a word and being able to use it correctly in a sentence. The best way to increase vocabulary is for the child to be immersed in a language rich environment. Talk to your child using adult words and explain what new words mean to your child. Reading is another great way to learn new words. Your child will be reading words on their level, but you can still read chapter books a few levels ahead of your child to help increase vocabulary.

The fifth and final part of pre reading is fluency. Fluency is the difference between a child decoding a word and understanding what that word really means. Fluency allows the reader to rapidly read text while still having comprehension of what is written. Sight words are part of fluency. The child should be able to look at common words and quickly know it's meaning.

Once you know the five basic parts of being a good reader you can help your child learn easily. Becoming a good reader is a skill that will be used your child's entire life. Instilling a love of reading early in your child helps your child learn to love to learn and become a good student.