Primary School Prep DIY Guide-Reading-Page 5
SINGLE WORDS
You must have faith to achieve results:
Please understand that the time it takes to see results will vary from child to child. In one child you could start at six months and see results by nine months. For another child, you could start at six months and see results at two years. Are you willing to be persistent and consistent until your child achieves results? You will be discouraged at times when you don’t see results when you expect to. But please believe in your child and that the results will come.
Who this will not work for: If your child has difficulty seeing or has difficulty hearing then this will not be suitable for them.
Age
What age do I start? You should start from about five months. However, start whenever you have learnt about this, so long as your child is still between five months and five years. However, it will be more effective if you are starting under one year, than if you are starting at four years. Also, because this system teaches by showing children the full words and not by teaching them phonics, if your child has already started school and is learning to read using the usual school method of phonics, then in our view, it is probably too late to start teaching them to read using this method. However, if your child is below 5 years and still in nursery or kindergarten, then teaching them using this method will not interfere with the phonics that they are being taught.
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Lack of Interest
What if your child shows a lack of interest at first or a lack of interest after a period of time?
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This is only really a problem for older children, i.e.; toddlers.
If, for example, you start teaching your child when they are two years old, you may find that they lack interest and don’t want to stay for the sessions. Or you may find that when they were one, they were interested in the sessions, but now that they are two, they are no longer interested.
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Let’s deal with the first scenario, i.e.; you start when they are older, and they don’t really want to do the sessions. Getting your child to sit and watch while you show them a piece of paper with a word written on it in black pen, when they are used to watching flashy and exciting videos, may be difficult. However, this is why you keep the sessions very short. Your aim is to get them to stay for 10 seconds while you show them 10 words, making sure that they are looking at the word, as you show it to them. In addition to keeping the sessions short, try also rewarding them. Promise that if they stay for the 10 words then you will give them x or y reward. Have the rewards ready for them there to give them right after the session. Some children may take a bit of time to get used to the sessions and the reward will help them continue long enough until it becomes something that they want to do, irrespective of whether they get a reward. However, if a reward is needed for every session in order to get your child to pay attention, then given the importance of what you are trying to teach them please give them the reward as often as is required.
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In addition to a reward or instead of a reward, try overly praising them at the end of each session, clapping for them also. Praise will encourage them to stay for more sessions. NEVER EVER SCOLD your child for showing a lack of interest - it is a problem to solve.
For those children who were once interested and have now lost interest, make sure that you are regularly showing them new words. Part of them losing interest may be that you are not introducing new words regularly enough or moving along the stages to couplets, sentences, etc. Also, for children who have lost interest, a reward for staying with the sessions can be effective.
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We have anticipated this problem for those who access Primary School Prep Done 4U because the words are presented to the children on a screen as part of an animated story that they watch. The animated story keeps their interest, while the words that we want them to learn appear on the screen. It was developed with babies from five months old, to toddler age in mind and is aimed at preventing, especially the older ages, from losing interest.
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If this is an issue which you are struggling to resolve, then getting access to Primary School Prep Done 4U will help you solve that problem.