Help Your Child Become a Better Reader

Learning to read is exciting because it opens up a whole new world of knowledge, fun and opportunity for your little one. There are many ways you and your child can practice together, and some of them might surprise you. Read on if you’re looking for new, enjoyable ways to help your pre-schooler learn to read or support your little bookworm to become an even stronger reader.

Highlights:

You can help your child become a better reader by:
Reading out loud, singing songs, rhyming, and sounding out letters.
Understanding that coordination skills and reading skills are often connected.
Take your little one swimming, dancing, or playing ball as often as possible.

Reading and Coordination Skills

According to Sensorimotor Consultant, Mette Drescher Jensen, there’s often a connection between your child’s coordination skills and their reading skills which is important knowledge, when you would like to help your child become a better reader.

”In order to learn to read, your child must be able to connect sounds and letters, so this should be practiced by reading out loud, rhyming, singing and getting to know all the letters. However, learning to read is also connected to the coordination of the eyes. The eyes must be able to follow a fluid movement from side to side. If your child has some difficulty with their motor or coordination skills, their eyes will often skip words or lose a line break when they read, and then it becomes difficult. Your child will then be using all their energy to read the letters and pronounce the sounds, and they will not remember or understand what they just read.”

Let’s Play Ball!

Learning to read is hard for many little students. So, what can you do to help develop your child’s eye movement and coordination skills to improve their reading? Actually, this is something that happens naturally every day when you give your child the time and space to play and be physically active. But you can encourage your child by engaging in some fun games and activities that will really work their coordination skills. For example, it’s a great idea to play ball or go swimming or dancing with your little reader, here’s why:

“Throwing and catching a ball is probably the best way to train eye movements and visual tracking skills. All ball games like tennis, handball or football will work as well. It's about getting the two halves of the brain working together, so all kinds of coordination exercises are great. It might sound a bit silly but crawling or doing high fives are also great cross coordination exercises. You could also go swimming or dancing with your child.”, says Mette Drescher Jensen.

There are so many different games you and your child can play together to practice coordination and reading skills. And the best part? Your child will be learning while having lots of fun with you at the same time.