Women's Home Activities

Sitting around the table after a family dinner in honor of our daughter’s birthday the other night a topic of discussion that is near and dear to my heart came up. She and our daughter-in-law were talking about encouraging their children to learn and in particular ways to get them to read.

I had been playing with the grandkids in the other room when Poppy (my husband) came in and said I think you’d better come in here for this one. He was right; he knows me and definitely knew that I would not want to miss a discussion like this. Grammie’s (that’s me) ears perked up and I began listening intensely to what they had to say.

The teacher in me had to jump in the middle of this one. Although the majority of my professional career was working with high school students with learning disabilities, I’ve always had an affinity for working with much younger children.

I love the developmental stages from infancy to the primary grades. I always figured that if you could help kids when they are just being introduced to learning, then they would be less likely to have problems later in school.

You would also foster the idea of becoming life-long learners when you catch them at an early age and promote the love of learning as a whole. And isn’t that really the point? Don’t you want your children to not only learn to read but to crave knowledge?

As you may know, reading is the fundamental basis for learning. Children need this foundation to succeed in life. Encouragement and involvement from the adults in their world, especially the parents, can make all the difference in your children taking the first steps in learning to read.

After much bantering back and forth on the subject I also started thinking about what others might want to know. Hence the reason for this post; I decided why not get you all involved too. I figured it would be best to create a survey of sorts for parents on How to Teach Your Child to Read.

What Do You Need to Help Your Children Learn to Read?

Ok, I am putting the ball in your court. Let me know what it is that you need to help your children learn to read. I am going to ask a few simple questions and then give you the chance to respond.

You may even have a question or two that is not on the list. That is fine; in fact that is great! The point is I would like to find out from you what you need to know about your child’s learning.

This is an informal survey but I will have a follow up post with the information gathered from the questions. I want to do my part and share with you knowledge that I have gained from the questions as well as my experience as a teacher.

On with the Questions – How to Help Your Kids Learn to Read

Here is your chance to give me some feedback on how to help your kids learn to read. As stated before if you do not see the question that you would like to know, please feel free to ask.

1.   What reading activities do you participate in with your children now?

2.   What ages are your children?

3.   What would you like to know specifically about helping your child learn to read?

4.   Why do you think learning to read is important?

5.   Have you had difficulties finding information on teaching your child to read?

6.   If so, what were you searching for?

7.   Is there a particular reading development product you are looking for?

8.   Is this for your children or someone you know?

9.   What frustrations have you faced when helping your child learn to read

10.  What can I do to help you with your search?

I will be gathering the information over the next few days so please be patient when waiting for the replies. I do promise to follow up with another post dealing with the findings gathered by these questions.

I appreciate your participation in this study and look forward to getting back with you soon on what I have discovered from it. As always if you have any further questions or needs that you would like to discuss contact me and I will get back with you as soon as possible.