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Here’s a question that we hear over and over from ISL parents: How can I help my child learn to read in a target language that I don’t speak? The research on immersion education gives a clear answer: When you teach children to read in their native language, you’re building basic skills that they can transfer to other languages. Learning an alphabet, recognizing spelling patterns, blending sounds to make words — these are muscles you flex whether you’re reading in English, French, or Spanish.
Of course, the skills you work on will depend on your child’s age. Teach kindergarteners letter names and sounds, and play games that develop their phonemic awareness. (Phonemic awareness is your ability to recognize and manipulate sounds. It includes skills like finding rhymes or identifying the first sound in a word.) First graders should be sounding out simple words, memorizing common sight words, and starting to read short texts. In second grade, many students get comfortable enough with reading that they start to read for enjoyment. Get them some fun books from the library! The Magic Tree House and Dog Man are English-language series that are popular with Dixon students.
As Academic Readiness instructors, we help students improve their reading fluency. The goal is to help them increase the amount of words they read in one minute. Measuring the number of words over a period of time helps us determine the student’s progress.
Even when dealing with words, math can be involved! Help your child by reading aloud with them, and then counting the syllables in each word. You can compare the lengths of words by the amount of syllables and see which word has the “greater” or “lesser” amount. You can help them identify how many pages are in a book, and even make a math problem out of it. For example, if a book has fifty-two pages and you are on page forty-eight, how many pages are left to finish the book? The possibilities are endless with math and reading.
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