A Parent’s Role in Teaching a Young Child to Read

Abstract

The most important concept the mother should be familiar with, in wanting to teach her child to read is the child’s “readiness to read”. Some people interpret this to mean the chronological age at which the child can be taught reading. Many countries have accepted 5 years as the age where children can be formally taught reading. The wider concept of “readiness to read”, however, involves that stage of intellectual maturity marked by the child’s ability to communicate orally, his attitude towards learning, his experiences and his use of vocabulary. The child’s command of the spoken language is a very important basis on which to teach reading because only then will the sounds that he produces in the process of reading be meaningful to him.