Reading is the pathway to great joy and imagination. Often, you will see people so immersed in a book that the world around them ceases to exist. That’s the power of words and stories. Reading is a skill we develop when we are young. The connection between words and sounds is an intrinsic part of our understanding. Let’s look at some ways to build the components of reading for children.

Voice

Understanding sounds and how they relate to letters is a skill we call phonics. Attaching a sound to each letter helps your child build spelling and recognize everyday words. Similarly, reading picture books aloud, playing phonics hopscotch, building words of the day, rhyming games, and introducing audio books help children develop phonics at a very young age. Today, every school curriculum introduces phonics early on so that children can develop reading skills.

Phoneme Awareness

Phonemes are the small sound units used in word creation. Learning the sounds made by letters and their combinations to create words can increase a child’s understanding of language. For example, the sound changes completely when the letter B is combined with the letter O and the letter U. B/O/Y and B/U/S sound different and mean different things, but the starting sound is the same for both. Phonemic awareness helps your child parse the sounds in a word and easily explain its meaning.

Vocabulary

Phonics and phonemic awareness help children build and recognize words, which in turn builds vocabulary. The more words they encounter, the better they become at using them for writing and speaking. To build vocabulary, children need direct help from parents and teachers, and indirect help through books, word games and puzzles. Reading different books helps them sift through the words they are learning, pictures, phonics, and easily identify connections. This is a basic step in comprehension that eventually makes them fluent readers.

Fluency

Understanding words and sentences and comprehending their meanings comes from reading or speaking a language fluently. Fluency basically means identifying and understanding the meaning of a word, whether spoken or read silently. It helps your child to appreciate books in their entirety while absorbing every emotion portrayed. This skill can be developed in children through various methods such as paired reading, phrase recognition, reading aloud and listening to audiobooks.

Reading Comprehension

Children take the first step toward reading comprehension when they begin to string words to make sentences and gain understanding from them. This involves the four components of reading and the ability to interpret the meaning of a given text by asking questions such as who, what, when, where, and why. It leads to the analytical and critical thinking skills associated with developing reading skills. Drawing a scene from a given text, open-ended questions, encouraging reflection and opinion and making connections to real-life situations all contribute to the development of children’s comprehension skills and thus help develop their academic skills at different stages of their lives.

Children’s lack of reading skills such as vocabulary, fluency and word recognition can be detrimental to their future and have a profound impact on their overall development.

Developing a reading habit is essential to developing good reading skills. This ensures that your child is focused on enjoying the text they are reading, rather than trying to sort out sounds and letters. Introducing your child, step by step, to the different components of reading is the best gift you can give them.