Getting Started in Reading
If you want your child to enjoy reading (no matter what language), it depends only on you. The most important period for developing love of reading is at the age of 2-5 years when the child forms its basic habits. At this time, of course, reading is done by the adult, using pictures to tell the stories in the beginning, and after that reading the entire text in the book. But the most important thing is for the parent to read their child regularly and to create the necessary routine for the process.
Approximately at about 4-5 years, the child starts expressing a desire to “read” its books on its own. In fact, children remember what text accompanies the respective picture in the book and can easily reproduce it, as if they are actually reading. At this time, the parent assists the child, gives clues, and… turns the pages of the book.
Reading a foreign language in early childhood
The best thing you can do for your child is to give them books in a foreign language from early childhood (2-5 years). During this period, the children still accept more non-verbal information and the meaning of the words themselves is understood through the intonation, the emotion of the words, the movements, the eyes. That’s why it’s best to start reading books in a foreign language right from this age. Children easily remember which book is read in which language and subsequently reproduce in their language. It is important that each book is taught with a specific language and that you do not translate the booklet to your children. They will begin to understand it without difficulty after repeating it several times.
Important: in the English-speaking world there is a rule that says – “The littler the child, the bigger the book“
That’s why you can easily find the so-called ” Big Books” – Giant/Big Books. These are editions in an enlarged format of books suitable for small children.
Some of the books do not even contain text because there is no need for word content at that age. It is important that a specific picture of the book corresponds to the saying of a specific text and that it will not change too much. You can gradually add characteristics of a particular character. For example, duck – yellow duck – one yellow duck.
Recommended titles:
- The very Hungry caterpillar
- The cat in the hat
- Goodnight moon
- Room on the broom
- Are you my mother
- Guess how much I love you
- Brown bear, brown bear what do you see?
- Where the wild things are
- Clifford the Big Red Dog
- Corduroy
- Winnie The Pooh
- Pat the bunny
- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
- Peter Rabbit
- Where Is Wally?
- The rainbow fish
- Runaway Bunny
How to Choose Books for the Smallest Readers (5-7 Years)
There are many books in English for novice readers. When selecting a book, it is important to pay attention to the amount of text on each page.
For beginners, small books (with few pages) that contain one phrase per page are suitable. Thus, the child connects the small text with the particular picture and easily memorizes what the word looks like (a transition from the “story” by picture to actual word reading).
Gradually, the amount of text increases to a single simple sentence. After that there are two sentences, a complex sentence and finally a whole paragraph. The gradual increase of the text is vital for developing the child’s reading skills.
Especially for this stage in the development of reading your child, we recommend books from http://emea.scholastic.com/en/leveled-book-room
Another site that offers a variety of books for beginner readers in English is:http://www.readbrightly.com/30-best-level-1-reading-books-for-children/
On both sites, you can find a great deal of books for all ages and levels. It is important to keep up with the English proficiency of your child and select books based on that.
This will greatly facilitate your choice.
In addition to the huge selection in the sites above, we recommend all books by Dr. Seuss for the age of 3-7 years: ABC, One fish two fish, Book of colors, Horton hears a Who, Oh, the places you’ll go, Sleep book, Green eggs and ham, Cant in the hat, The foot book, Fox in Socks, The lorax, There’s a wocket in my pocket, How Grinch stole Christmas, etc.
For 8-9 year-olds, and average reading proficiency in English, LuckyKids recommends some very interesting titles not only suitable for developing reading skills but are also very intriguing for children.
- Diary of a wimpy kid
- Charlotte’s Web
- Dog Man
- Little Boy
At this stage, it is important that the stories are fascinating, but not too long. Books for children of this age and level are written in a larger font but are in the adult book format. Images are usually small and in black and white. This way the child makes a smooth transition from a small text with many pictures to a lot of text with little pictures.
For the age of 10-12 years and level of English – advanced: in this case we recommend world bestselling and classic literature. The choice is made on the basis of what kind of genre the child likes: mystery, fantasy, adventure, romance, etc.
The parent has a rather advising role in choosing books, and we recommend that you buy all books together with the child. This is the last step before letting your child make the choice of books on its own. We recommend a series of books such as:
- Harry Potter series
- Fantastic Beasts and where to find them series
- Demigods and magicians series
- The trails of Apollo series
- The Divergent series
- The Hunger Games
- The Maze runner series
Every year, along with hit movies, books with the same titles are released. This choice is very easy, because children of this age are very much influenced by fashion trends. It is important to tolerate any purchased book, regardless of its genre. It is also important to intervene if the selection of a book is unfit for the child’s age.
Book genres such as crime, horror, thriller, erotica are definitely inappropriate and undesirable for a number of reasons. The most important of these: the proper psycho-emotional development of the adolescent, which will end around their 18th year. Regardless of your views regarding child raising, you should not easily disregard the influence the effect of a story on the unformed child’s psyche (regardless if it is a book or a movie).
Important notice: if your child is older, but at beginner reading level (and of the language in general), they will have to follow the steps from the beginning and go all the way, even though their age allows reading books for older children.
For children aged 12+: we believe that at this age every child should choose by themselves the literature they read as long as they have previously formed habits for proper selection.
However, parents can still find common themes of conversations with their teenagers if they discuss together a favorite book or a series of books. Children in this age love to tell when something has impressed them. The expression of interest on the part of the parent can only strengthen the parent-child relationship, which at this age is severely disturbed.
Where can I find literature in English?: nowadays you do not need to look long. Except in large electronic stores like E – bay and Amazon , you can find a wide variety of English literature in all major bookstore chains. Besides being divided by genres, it is also divided in age sections.
We wish all readers good luck,
LuckyKids
