Teaching My Children How to Read

All of us have our experiences with teaching our children different things throughout their childhoods. Do you have any particular experiences in which you enjoyed? I have one in particular, of many, that I feel was of great importance to my children's lives and that I also got tremendous enjoyment from. For this essay I chose to write the processes I came up with on how I taught my children how to read.

I had five children during the year in which I had custody of my two nieces. With this and attending college full time made individual time with each child somewhat difficult. My children, at this time, were between the ages of ten-years and six-months-old. Eric, my step-son, was ten years old; Angela, my step-daughter, was nine years old; Kevin, my biological-son, was six months old; and my two beatiful nieces, Sarah was nine years old, and Jessica was seven years old. Each child ws very bright and had his or her own unique personality. We never had a dull day at home. Reading with each child at home had its own processes and was a time that each of the children and I got a lot of enjoyment out of and one that I will cherish always.

What could be better? Each of the children got one-on-one time with me every day and at the same time were learning something that would benefit him or her for the rest of their lives. First, each child picked an evening before bedtime and had a choice of either a short story or a chapter book, in which we would read a chapter or two a week, to read from according to his or her age. They had a choice of one book out of around 200 that we had accumulated over the years, from reading levels of infancy to pre-teen.

I would set an hour aside, usually before bedtime, to read with one of the children, as stated earlier. I chose an hour to give some extra time so that he or she could sdk whatever questions he or she might have about his or her story, and also to be able to talk one-on-one for a little while without interruption. I have always enjoyed reading and began reading with my children from infancy. By doing so, my children knew and understood how to read by the age of three. On the evenings the younger children seemed restless or distracted, I had a reading game I came up with called "Popcorn." This would bring their attention back to reading and also made it fun for him or her. Popcorn is where one person begins reading and reads for as long as he or she wishes, and at any given time would say "popcorn," at which time the reading would switch to me until I said "popcorn;" we would take turns back and forth.

Teaching my children how to read was a fun and special time of both my life and their's. Starting at an early age and using some creativity made it possible for them to learn how to at an early age. With persistence and patientence they were given a tool that would benefit them for the rest of their lives.

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