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Can An Infant Learn To Read? |
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If you shook your head to that question, I can tell you I would have
done the same only a few years ago. But, I have discovered something
remarkable. In this article, I will discuss the brain development of the
infant and young child.
You know that children learn more in their first three to five years of life than at any other time. That is because their brain processes are rapidly developing. Synapses are forming which will determine how they process information for the rest of their lives. Is it possible that reading skills could be formed during this development? Surprisingly enough, the answer is yes. So in a sense, the infant can learn to read. Phonics is the key to language development and also to good reading ability. It is easy to introduce phonics at this young age. Simply show your infant or young child 'ABC' cards, giving not just their names but also their phonetic sounds. Now let me tell you what is going to happen. What happened with my child will happen with yours. Here's my story... I taught my older children who are now age 17 and 18 to read at kindergarten age using a good phonics program called "The Writing Road To Reading". They both read very well. I had an unexpected third child some seven years later. I began to show her 'ABC' cards giving the phonetic sounds shortly after her birth. Eventually I worked it up into a little video. I rarely showed her the video, probably no more that two to three times a month. Mostly it was my daughter who would ask to see it. At two she recognized letters everywhere, even in the pattern of things. By three, she was spontaneously reading words that she was exposed to a lot. For example, she was able to read the word 'stop' that she saw on road signs and other places. | I really didn't think much about that at the time.
But at age four, when I introduced her to reading the amazing outcome
showed itself.
Every word I read to her, even longer words, she would always be able to
read that word thereafter even in different contexts. As she learned
more words sometimes it would take more than one exposure, but never more
than a few.
As her reading vocabulary grew and she knew enough words to be able to read whole passages, she would read words she had never been introduced to before by determining them from the context clues. It was fun for me to watch her; she would hesitate, I could just see those wheels turning up there, and then out with the word. How was she able to do this? I believe the phonic synapses that were formed in her brain as her brain processes were rapidly developing allowed her to process those letter sounds making words and therefore she was just able to read naturally. If you teach a child to read using the phonics method the same thing happens only my child had already been through that process so she just read. If you put your hand on a hot surface there is an immediate reaction to remove your hand. It's the same thing. The same process of neurons firing, traveling through the nervous system and producing the result. The result being the word is read. Only it is happening at a higher mental level and therefore the synapses took longer to form. We live in a world of law and order. What goes up must come down. If you expose your infant to phonics during that time of rapid brain development they will read naturally. They will be already well prepared for their educational future. |
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Jerrie Hewlett is a Licensed Psychological Examiner in the State of Tennessee. Her graduate course work was concentrated in learning theories. She has written The Toddler's Edge, a complete preschool and pre-reading educational program, which can be viewed at her web site, The Toddler's Edge. | ||
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