How To Teach Your Child To Read A Book In 30 Days

Teaching your child to read at home is not as difficult as you might think. In fact, you can get your child to read their first age-appropriate book in about 30 days and that’s without using a whip and a chain either.

In fact, your child will love reading and will want to do their reading; and not only that, but you won’t have to spend more than 10 to 15 minutes per day teaching your child to read. This is not only good for you, the busy parent or care-giver, but it is good for your child’s reading progress as well.

Children have a low attention span and a reading lesson that goes on for too long will lessen the amount learnt. In fact, it can make your child resistant to all reading altogether.

The optimal window for learning in children is between the ages of 2 to 6. In fact, they do all their most complex learning in that time. They learn an entire language (or two), complex skills like eating, walking, talking and playing games that lay the foundation for the rest of their lives.

In a recent study at Yale University it was noted that “activating children’s neural circuitry for reading early on is key” and the U.S. National Panel of Reading Specialists and Early Childhood Educators recommended that teaching reading earliermay eliminate most reading problems that a child may experience in the future.

Children love to imitate; in fact, they mostly learn through imitation. We have special neurons in our brains (only discovered in the 21^st century) called Mirror Neurons that allow us to learn through imitation. Your child will want to read a book just like you or other children or people that they see.

Confidence is everything when you are teaching your child to read. Children hate to struggle with anything and if they are struggling to read, it will put them off reading and it’s something they might carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Yet, if reading comes easily to them, they will become readers; and this is the primary idea behind teaching your child to read a book in 30 days. It is important to build your child’s confidence and you do this by getting them to read a book (and doing it quickly). Once your child has managed to read one book, not only will their reading ability go through the roof, but soon they will have confidence in their reading and will want to read more and more.

If you teach your child to read as quickly as possible, reading will seem like a game, and what child doesn’t like to play games?

When your child is able to read books, you can fine tune their reading more easily. You can also spend more time on the basics, ensuring that they read better than even children who are older than them. This will ensure that when they get to school (if you’re not home schooling), they will be fully prepared and can have more fun and be more relaxed in their classes; and when learning is fun it is more easily retained.

A language is made up mostly of common words. These are words like and, as, at, the, etc. The 100 most common words appear in English literature (like books, newspapers, blogs, etc) more than 50% of the time. This means that, if your child can read these 100 words, then they are able to read half of everything that is written in English; and it doesn’t matter if it is a beginner children’s book, the Bible or a medical textbook.

Even if your child only knows 25 of the most common words, they will still be able to read a third of everything written in English.

So basically if your child can learn these 100 common words, then they will be able to read a book in 30 days.

Young children read words like symbols (without breaking the word down into its component parts) and most of the common words cannot be sounded out anyway; so your child will be learning these common words in the same way that they would memorise anything else.

If you, for example, showed your child 100 objects, 10 at a time (like a duster, a cup, a pencil, a shoe, etc) and asked them to memorise these items, you can easily get them to recall and identify all 100 of these items in a few weeks. This is the exact process that you will use to teach your child the 100 most common words giving them access to half of everything written.

Because your child will also receive one-on-one tutoring from you they will also learn better and faster. When a child learns to read in a school classroom, they will be sharing their reading teacher with about 20 other children. This means that in a 30-minute lesson, your child will be getting one-on-one attention from that teacher for about one minute. This is mainly why it takes so long for a child to learn to read in school.

By teaching your child to read using words and phrases that they are interested in, will make them come back for more making reading the gift that keeps on giving.

Our modern education system is based on reading and all learning is done through reading. It is therefore the best and most logical place to start.

Teaching your child to read at home will not cost you anything, but there are personal qualities which you will have to bring to the table.

Teaching your child to read requires consistent effort. It has to be done every day (be it for only a few minutes) but the secret lies in doing it consistently. It therefore requires your (the adult’s) full commitment and you will have to be disciplined and consistent in your efforts. It’s okay if you miss the odd day, but you should endeavour to do a lesson at least 5 days per week.

You are a parent and this goes without saying, but being patient applies even more so when it comes to teaching reading as this will be a totally new experience for your. You must make the effort to keep your reading sessions short and playful (in tone anyway). This will go a long way to reassure your child and keep their progress consistent.

Monitor your and your child’s moods and make sure that you only do your lessons when you are both feeling fresh and in high spirits. There is no use in doing your lesson when either you or your child is tired, they’ve just eaten or just before nap time or their favourite TV show.

That’s just looking for a tantrum to happen.

Children are creatures of habit and if you set a regular time and place for their reading, it won’t be a surprise to them and they will come prepared to learn and will even surprise you with their enthusiasm.

You, their parent, know what your child’s interests are and if you include these words into their lesson, you will soon have an enthusiastic child who will not only look forward to their reading lesson, but soon they will give you words that they want to learn to read, for example my son was crazy about dinosaurs, Winnie the Pooh and aliens. The best fun we had was making sentences using these words, one of his favourites was, “My daddy is a green dinosaur”.

Make your child’s reading lesson interesting, fun and interactive and your child will then be learning to read in partnership with you instead of you doing all the work.

Make learning to read just another game that you play with your child. Keep a playful voice, make eye contact, smile and give them lots of praise and encouragement.

Now let’s look at how to get your child ready for reading.

Before you even start reading, there are a number of things that you can do to get your child ready to learn to read.

Studies show that children from homes with more than 500 books will have up to 3 years more college education than children from homes that don’t.

Your child needs to know what reading is and what is expected of them. By reading to them, you are showing them how words on a page become a story. You are also getting them to want to do what you do. This is half the battle won.

By giving your child lots of books, both as gifts on special occasions and also as impromptu gifts, you are showing them that you value books and reading. Children get their value systems from us (their parents) and giving them books as gifts will go a long way to getting them to want to read.

As I’ve stated before, children spend most of their time imitating us (their parents) and if your child sees you reading then they will also want to be like you and read.

It also doesn’t matter what you are reading, as long as you read.

Now we come to the nuts and bolts of teaching your child to read.

As I have said before, by teaching your child the 100 most common words, they will be able to read more than half of everything written in English. You should first start with the 25 most common words (your child will learn these in about a week) and thereafter adding sets of ten, until they know all 100 common words.

According to the Readers Book of Lists, the 25 most common words make up one third of all written material.

According to Wikipedia, the 100 most common words are as follows:

1. the
2. when
3. make
4. can
5. like
6. time
7. no
8. just
9. him
10. know
11. take
12. person
13. into
14. year
15. your
16. good
17. some
18. could
19. them
20. see
21. other
22. than
23. then
24. now
25. look
26. only
27. come
28. its
29. over
30. think
31. also
32. back
33. after
34. use
35. two
36. how
37. our
38. work
39. first
40. well
41. way
42. even
43. new
44. want
45. because
46. any
47. these
48. give
49. day
50. most
51. us
52. be
53. to
54. of
55. and
56. a
57. in
58. that
59. have
60. I
61. it
62. for
63. not
64. on
65. with
66. he
67. as
68. you
69. do
70. at
71. this
72. but
73. his
74. by
75. from
76. they
77. we
78. say
79. her
80. she
81. or
82. an
83. will
84. my
85. one
86. all
87. would
88. there
89. their
90. what
91. so
92. up
93. out
94. if
95. about
96. who
97. get
98. which
99. go
100. me

It is important that your child chooses their own first book that they are going to read as this builds on their confidence and gives them something to strive for and look forward to.

Get your child fully involved in the process of getting their first book.

Take your child to a book store and select a few age-appropriate first reading books for them to choose from. Their choice will surprise you.

By doing this, you are getting their buy-in into the reading process and ensure that they are keen on the books that they want to read. If your child looks forward to reading their first book, it will make your job a lot easier.

Once your child is reading comfortably and has read a few books, they will begin to ask you questions like, “What’s this word?” or “How do I say this?”, then you will know that it is time to teach them phonics. The process for teaching phonics is exactly the same and you have to teach them the most common combinations of letters with their sounds.

Soon you will have your child reading by themselves.

Teaching your child to read is not as difficult as it is made out to be as children learn better when they understand why they are doing something, what is expected of them, and when the subject matter interests them. By following these very simple guidelines you can have your child reading within 30 days.

If you found this article useful you may want to consider getting a system that will help you teach your child to read in 30 days & reading with phonics.

Teaching your child to read is one of the most rewarding experiences a parent can have. Relax, smile and always remember… have FUN!

Good Luck!