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When Should Your Child Begin to Read?

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Posted by Your Guide on March 14, 2006 4:14 PM

Most children will begin to understand that letters all have a sound of their own and that when those sounds are grouped together, they make words somewhere between the ages of 5 and 8. That’s a huge age range, but even during this time, reading skills are still moving along the path, developing one small skill at a time. As the child’s skills increase, the size and complexity of the words will also increase.

However, your child will, most likely, begin to “read” at a very early age. Recognition of symbols and facial expressions is a form of reading. Knowing that the girls’ restroom has a figure of a woman on the door, while the boys’ restroom has a figure of a man on it, shows recognition of the symbol that tells your child which restroom is appropriate for him or her. Reading words is simply a more complex form of symbol reading, since letters are merely symbols for each sound in our spoken vocabulary. Over time, your child will begin to understand that the symbols on the pages you read to them each day are words and those words tell the stories they love so much.

Nevertheless, many parents are hung up on when their child should be able to read, as if one day a door will open, the child will walk through it, and be able to “read” on the other side. If only reading were that simple. But reading is a process, much like learning to walk or ride a bike. Just like walking and bike riding, your child must achieve certain physical milestones before reading letters and words can be achieved. Before your child can read words, their eyes must develop until they are able to focus well, and move together from one side of the page to the other, as well as from the top to the bottom of the page in an organized manner. Not only does this basic skill require physical ability, but also the mental capacity to understand the words “top,” “bottom,” “left,” “right,” and “across.” Whew! When you say it like that, it sounds hard, doesn’t it?



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