By Funke Eweje
Children are born with innate language skills. Notwithstanding, there’s need to make conscientious efforts to groom these skills from as early as babyhood as they are generally most receptive to learning in the first 5 years. For preschoolers who already possess deep listening as well as rapidly developing speech and pre-writing skills, the keys to greater milestones, including reading, are to keep learning activities simple, one at a time and fun!
To set your child on the right track to be language savvy, a prowess sure to give his academic potential and social confidence a healthy boost, find a few helpful tips:
Encourage Doodling, Scribbling & Drawing
Toddlers just love to do these, so, encourage them to do more. Activities like spooning some grains of rice from one bowl to the other, putting pegs on a line, or scribbling will strengthen their fine motor skills required to hold writing materials such as pencils and crayons properly. Though this may not be fine tuned till they’re 6 years, teaching and allowing them independent access to crayons, markers, pencils and other age-appropriate writing and art items, accelerates learning to hold writing materials correctly. It also facilitates early literacy and creativity.
Majority of children between 3-5 display controlled scribbling; they are already familiar with letters and print and are beginning to use letters, especially those in their names, in their own writing, so, find them more avenues to scribble. There are also plenty of child-friendly apps like ‘scribble kid’ for 3- 6 year old available. Encourage them to use during play. Praise little accomplishments and watch them get better by the day.
Point At And Label Items
As early as possible, cultivate the habit of pointing at and naming items in your home or elsewhere your child is curious about. Also show distinction between colours (green, blue, red, and so on), shapes and sizes (big, small, huge, little) by asking them to fetch items. This helps them associate the quite abstract names of items with their meaning. Simple words, sight words and rhyming games may also help.
Creating awareness about letters, the sound each makes and practicing sounding them out in different words increases their phonemic awareness, improving vocabulary, expression and reading ability.
Teach Attentiveness
At this age, children are not too skilled in reading and writing, so, interaction and learning is mostly through oral communication. Grooming good listening skills will therefore aid better comprehension, paving way for more learning and expressiveness. You’ll find attention span, concentration and interest influences getting children to listen. It helps to teach them to keep their eyes on whoever is to talking to them (this may help them focus and tune out distractions) while staying calm.
Have them practise this while talking to them, make a habit of telling exciting stories, using different tones and pitches to relay emotions, listen to interesting rhymes, music, stories, and interactive programmes together. Make sure to ask open ended questions (questions which do not elicit yes / no but allow them talk freely) to evaluate each process.
In addition, always model good listening habits by avoiding distractions and paying total attention when they’re talking to you.
Note: Treat ear infections promptly and thoroughly to prevent hearing defects.
Talk More
Young children love to tell loved ones details about their new and past experiences, discoveries, observations, feelings and so on. With a listening ear and interested look, you can use these usually haphazard accounts as subtle teachable moments. If they mention a new word, applaud them, ask what it means, guide them if they’re not completely right, then, find ways to use that word in other simple sentences. Gradually, they’ll master the art of arranging their thoughts sequentially to relay experiences or feelings, an effective communication skill.
When they share these little details with you, ask further questions and help them find appropriate words to convey their thoughts, feelings and ideas whenever they’re stuck or stutter. If your child refers to the sky as ‘black,’ ask, “Did you mean the sky is cloudy?” Tell him the sky is often that way when it’s about to rain. Drawing that association may help him retrieve the word ‘cloudy’ and use it correctly next time.
Remember, it’s not about tiring drills nor spotting and correcting their flawed speech over-zealously. Don’t make fun at their pronunciation or expressions. If they feel you’ll only embarrass them, they may learn to keep their lips sealed often. Only repeat their words or rephrase statements in appropriate form, and with time, they’ll learn.
Have a Routine Reading Time
If you’ve been reading to your child from infancy, he’ll be very familiar with the process by now. If you haven’t done so already, invest in alphabet, song, picture, rhyming, story and adventure books for children this age. Teach them how to hold a book appropriately, flip the pages, observe illustrative images, and read interesting books to their listening routinely. Before, during and after these reading sessions, ask questions which encourage lots of expression as well as evaluate the level of comprehension. In addition, before reading a new book, let them try guessing what the content will likely be from the title and images on the cover, and while reading, allow them predict what will happen next and so on. At the end of the story, let them try re-telling the story their own way and share lessons derivable.
Remember, it’s no time for drills. Corrections must be done subtly, so your child doesn’t feel pressured and lose interest. It’s first about helping them enjoy the process and comprehend whatever is read to them.
In addition, let them see you, your spouse and older sibling read varieties of books often. Research shows this may create a flair for reading in the long run.
Creative Writing
From 4 to 6 years, your child is already having lots of language drills in school, so, apart from offering tutoring with her worksheets, encourage creative writing by asking her to write on simple topics like her day at school, herself, favourite food or friend, last holiday and so on. Writing skills get better with regular practice.
Surround With Positive Influence
Children are like sponges and the bulk of what they learn is most times mindlessly picked from their environment. So, make sure your home and their school environment are such that learning the wrong forms of language use and reading habits are not reinforced. Expose them to other language friendly environments and keeps tabs on errors mindlessly learnt from peers.
This list is not exhaustive, discover more as you go and modify to suit your child’s needs and learning pace.
Source: Motherhood In-Style Magazine