by Ou Young Foon

Created on: February 22, 2010

We all agree that reading is essential to learning for both adults and children.  We need to inculcate reading habits in children so that they will associate reading with pleasure and grow to like reading books from a young age.  Reading aloud to children not only provides entertainment and promotes the bond between parents and children, it also arouses curiosity and inspires their young minds.

Start reading to children at a young age.  It will be more beneficial to the child and easier to the parent.  Choose a suitable book that is of interest to both of you.  A book that is suitable for your child's age group will be easily absorbed and accepted by your child, whereas any reading material that is too tough for your child to understand will frustrate him and cause him to lose interest.  You must at least have some interest in the book you choose to read too, or else your dislike will show and that defeats the purpose.  Hence choose books wisely; not all prize-winning books are suitable for reading aloud to your child.

Before reading to your child, read it yourself first.  Familiarise yourself with the story so that you can plan ahead where to stop if the story is too long to finish reading in a session.  Locate sentences or passages that are unnecessarily long or complex that you think your child is incapable of understanding.  Mark them and when you come to them when reading to your child, you can either leave them out, summarize or simplify them to make your reading session more pleasant.

Begin by reading the title of the book, the author and illustrator.  Repeat them even if you are not reading the book for the first time.  This will let your child know their importance.  Make your child pay attention to the illustrations on the book cover and on each page.  Let him guess the plot based on the illustrations on the book cover. You may discuss the pictures on each page subsequently to increase his interest in the story.  Stop at some keywords or phrases to allow your child to provide.  Jot down any new or difficult words your child encounters  and make a point to check their meanings after the reading session.  By doing this, your child will widen his vocabulary in no time.  You may also encourage his involvement by

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