Reading habbits

Hi Deepti! I appreciate your concern. Reading is a very good habit inculcated in children right from the time they are about 6 months and learn to sit. U could show them picture books in the beginning and let them have a feel of it. By 7 or 8 months u could give names to pictures . And by the time they are about 2 years and have a vocabulary of few words u could give them story books with pictures and narrate stories. At around 3 and 5 years of age, again story books with pictures and simple words would be useful depending on reading ability of kids. You could ask elder one to read out simple stories to Lil one. Make it a ritual to read out one story to both kids before sleeping. Also u can bring simple books with fun activities like champak and other children's magazines, let them have fun. At times they could read a story on their own and then narrate to you in simple English. This would enhance their comprehension as well as conversation skills. Also they could underline difficult words and write them in a notebook and with your help find out their meaning from dictionary.

Hi Deepti, you can start reading aloud to them the books in your mother tongue. Visit library and bookstores often and let them choose what they like. Create a special place in your home for their books. Read aloud often to them anytime anywhere. While waiting for doctor's appointment, waiting in the queue, travelling and so on. Keep a regular time for daily reading too say bedtime reading or after school reading which they can look forward to. explore wide range of genre of books to find your child's interest. Read slower than the speed in which you converse with your children. Read with voice modulation for different mood and emotions and different voice for each characters, point out the words while reading. Buy or make your own finger puppets and use them while reading. Pause and leave for a moment, while reading, for them to ponder. Make it interactive by asking them to retell the story or ask questions about the characters. The younger one may have trouble in remembering the names and sequencing the events in the story. So repeat the names often and help her with her sequencing skills. For that You can draw pictures along with your children and ask them to sequence them. Discuss the similarities and differences in the stories you have already read. Ask which part they liked and disliked and why. Ask them to change the end of the story. talk about the illustrations. Ask them to predict the story from the book cover and the illustrations. It's ok even if they get it all wrong. Buy children's magazine, comics regularly. Buy a lot of picture books with nice and big illustrations. While you have read aloud sessions, everyday spend sometime to help them with their phonetics too. make them read books with predictable word patterns or rhyming words, make them read environmental prints such as food label, hoardings, road signs etc. Model with your own reading. Share your favorites. Once they grow a little older start focusing more on the comprehension skill by having a deeper conversation on the main idea of the story, characters, emotions, predictions, summary, theme, author's view, author's craft , her own view, new vocabulary etc.. For now, create their interest on books. If your children start liking to sit with the book and go through the pictures, that's a great success. Because going page after page seeing the illustrations is the first step in independent reading.