You can make teaching your child to read a very easy process when you know how learning happens in the brain. It works the same way for young children as for adults but because all their learning is new; it is important for you to understand the process.
Below I will explain the two main processes of learning and later on I will tell you how you can apply this to teaching your child to read. We have only recently discovered how these two processes, Myelination and Mirror Neurons, work through the improvement and use of imaging technology.
Mirror neurons
When you perform an action, like walking, talking, writing, reading or playing the piano, the neurons in your brain will fire, sending signals to the various brain regions and muscles along the nervous system.
A mirror neuron will, however, fire when you are observing an action; in other words, when you are watching someone else perform an action, your brain acts like it is you who is performing the action.
What this basically means is that you literally learn by watching.
Myelination
Myelin is the coating that covers the neural pathways that the signals travel along in your brain. This is like the plastic or rubber coating that covers electrical wires that stops the wires from "leaking" electricity. Myelin is the grey matter of your brain and accounts for most of its mass.
This insulating effect is very thin in children as they are still learning and gets thicker through the repeated firing of a neuron.
So, when your child first learns to read, this myelin sheeting is very thin but through repeated practice it gets thicker and thicker; and the thicker this myelin sheeting is, the better your child will be able to read.
How to use this information to teach your child to read
Your child first learns by watching. They walk upright because you walk upright (feral children walk like the animals that raised them for example). Your child will want to read because they see you reading. You, as the parent, already know that they will copy everything you do, and now that you know that it is because of these mirror neurons, you can use this to your advantage.
When you sit and read, or read with or to your child, they will want to copy what you do, and this is the first step to teaching your child to read.
Myelin increases when your child practices an action and the more they practice, the thicker this myelin sheeting gets and the better they do at the practiced activity.
You can make this learning process easier for your child by moving from large to small and from wide to more detailed. Let me explain.
When you are teaching your child to read, start by teaching them the process of reading. Begin by getting them to read a book as soon as possible. There is nothing as confusing for a child than to learn to read one word at a time when they want to read a whole book like you.
The easiest way to do this is to teach them the 100 most common words in English (this one simple action allows them to read half of everything written in English) and get them started on very simple books.
This encourages reading and removes the chore from learning. Your child is now doing what you do (mirroring what you do) except they are starting on a lower level.
From here you only have to expand their reading skills by teaching them phonics, which, since they are already reading they will take to like fish to water.
Learning to read and teaching your child to read is an easy and enjoyable process when you understand how naturally children can do it. They don't have to struggle and neither do you. By simply understanding the learning process and applying an easy to use reading system your child should be reading in less time than you could have possibly imagined.
>> Click here to for a simple, step-by-step program that can help your child learn to read, and watch a video of a 2 year old child reading
