Teach your children how to read and write, CORRECTLY

Reading and writing goes hand in hand! It is like the black and white of piano keys. The one cannot work perfectly without the other.

My kids grew up in a household where their dad was English and me, the mom, Afrikaans speaking. Mothers tend to speak to their children in the language they grew up with therefor I had to find a way in which I could engage my children to read and write more English than Afrikaans.

Reading:

Through reading we grow not only our vocabulary but we also learn about the context of writing;

• Structuring of sentences
• Using the right words and tenses
• Expressing ourselves and
• Improving our communication skills

I found story books that caught the kid’s attention, story books which they could identify with, which was interesting, read easily and had a good ending. If you can find these kind of books you are on the winning path.

Of importance for me was that they understood what we were reading. “Comprehension” that word we all dreaded when we had to write English test papers.

I taught my kids the five finger rule of reading. I will ask them five questions and they must hold up a finger for each question they know.

Finger 1	What was the story about?
Finger 2	Where did it took place?
Finger 3	What happened in the beginning of the story?
Finger 4	What happened in the middle of the story?
Finger 5	How did the story end?

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I’m pretty sure that these were also the questions that got them through school and university.

Writing:

For me writing is even more important than speaking a specific language therefore I encourage parents to teach their children the importance of writing by getting them to start writing from a young age.

There are five common types of style when we write,

1. Narrative
2. Analytical
3. Persuasive
4. Descriptive and
5. Argumentative

These styles are however way too complicated for kids.

When we teach kids to write we only need to focus on two things; Fiction and Nonfiction.
What is the difference between the two?

FICTION - The story is not real, we read the story to enjoy it and we make use of illustrations.

NONFICTION – The story is real, we read to learn and we make use of photos, charts and graphs.

Again I use a five finger rule to make it easy for them.

Finger 1	What happened in the beginning? (main idea/focus)
Finger 2	Detail of what happened (supporting
Finger 3	More detail of what happened (supporting)
Finger 4	And… more detail of what happened (supporting)
Finger 5	How did it end?

I am sure that even us as adults can learn from using these finger tips and plan our posts accordingly.

Rules to teach the kids to apply when they write;

• Sentences must follow and not be written under each other
• Write in paragraphs
• Check your tenses!
• Check your vocabulary!
• Check your punctuation!
• Plan, write a rough draft, correct and then write the final version

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