Reading Strategies to develop sound awareness in your child

What Is Sound?

Sound is nothing but the waves of vibrations travelling through the air and are heard when they reach either a human being or an animal's ears.

Sound plays an important part in developing reading skill, as while developing the reading skill, the children are taught how each letter sounds and pronounced.

What Is Phoneme?

Phoneme is basically a unit of sound by which each letter or a word gets a distinct sound through which is recognised in any given language. For instance in English alphabets like p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat.

Are Sound And Phoneme Related?

Yes, sound and phoneme are related as phoneme is a distinct sound of a letter or a word by which it is recognised and thus read.

What Is Phonemic Awareness?

It is the small units of speech that correspond to letters of an alphabetic writing system and the awareness that language is composed of these small sounds is termed as phonemic awareness. Though developing phonemic awareness comes naturally and begins with utterances of bilabial sounds like 'ba ba ba ba', it still requires a lot of work to completely develop this skill of sound and letter association and moving to the next and important stages of reading words, reading short phrases and sentences and eventually to be able to write all this.

Most of the activities that are done in the preschool are directed at strengthening pre-reading, writing and pre-math skills. The pre-reading activities are all aimed at developing various oral and visual skills that includes phonics and their awareness. Your child may either struggle learning phonics in English or simply find it difficult to grasp, given that English per say is not a first language for most of us.

How Can I Help My Child With Reading Difficulties?

The strategies given below can work for those children who are struggling and also as a good practice for those who are not; these strategies are listed in sequential order and it is best advised to practice a combination of two or three together, instead of trying all of them, all at once

Start With: Say three words and have the child select the odd one out. For instance, say these words aloud: Tall, fall, dog… and now make your child identify the words that does not sound like the like two.

Next: Say a phrase or sentence and have the child tap out or count the number of words in it. Begin short and simple – four word sentences, for instance-- The baby is sleeping. After your child is close to mastering the above two, here's what to do next

Follow With: Say two syllables and have the child blend them into a word, for instance, Pen/cil – pencil.

Raise the bar: Increase the number of words (make it four words) and have the child select the letter/syllable that does not match with others. For instance- Flat, flower, slip, flow – so here slip is the odd one out, all others beginning with 'f'.

Make it Visual: Introducing pictures is a smart strategy; it will help to keep your child more engaged and attentive. Here's how to do this

Draw a box for each phoneme in a word. Say the word and a phoneme and ask the child to mark an “X” in the box representing the position of the targeted phoneme. For instance, say the word aloud such as 'boat' and draw three boxes. Ask your child to target the sound 't' and mark the box. So if the word is 'boat' and target sound is 't', so the box to be marked with an X is the last box. If the target sound is 'b', it would be the first box and if the target sound is 'o', then the middle box would get an X.

How Fast My Child Will Be Able To Develop The Reading Skills?

While doing these exercises, do be patient – remember all children learn at their own pace. Language development can be many times a natural process, but success in reading and writing can only be ensured if enough stimulation and exposure are provided at the beginning stages that is the first five years are before your child enters the real world of academics.

Do try out these strategies and share with us how your child responded. We will be looking forward to hearing from you. We would also love to know how you are helping your child develop better language skills, so please do write in your feedback and views in the comment section below.