Build reading skills with TinyTap

As a parent one of the greatest gifts you can give your children is a love of learning. And there is nothing as rewarding or as essential to a child’s education as those first few building blocks. The great thing about it it that it’s never too early or late to start.

 

If you’re looking to kick start your child’s life long appreciation of learning, why not start by focusing on reading skills. With a few easy to follow tips and TinyTap, you’ll be building your child’s reading skills in no time.

 

Parents need to keep in mind that learning to read is a process. Not unlike learning to walk. It takes some practice but your child will eventually get it. You just need to be patient. Also, it’s important to keep in mind that all children learn to read at a different pace. Don’t panic if you see your child is struggling. They will get it in their own time.

 
The most important thing is to make sure that your children find learning to read fun. That’s the only way to turn your children into strong, lifelong readers. It will also encourage your children to read for pleasure. And TinyTap is the perfect tool for this as it turns every learning opportunity into a game. Here are some practical tips for using TinyTap to build reading skills in a fun way.

 

1. Phonemic awareness

 
Phonemic awareness is about noticing the individual sounds that make up words. In English, while there are an infinite number of words there are only 45 different phonemes or sound units.

 

For a child to become a competent reader it’s essential that s/he can differentiate between these different units. For example, in a words like cat, a child needs to be able to recognize the difference in sound between /c/; /a/ ; /t/.

 

Before a child can begin to read, it’s essential that a child has phonemic awareness. This means that they have an understanding of how sounds work to form words. Not only will mastering this improve a child’s reading, but it will make it easier for the child to spell different words.

 

There are several ways a parent can start building a child’s phonemic awareness. Rhyming activities are very effective. Here are some rhyming games you can create which will develop phonemic skills.

 

1. What rhymes with cat?
a. dog b. fish c. hat d. butterfly

2. I say red. You say…
a. cat b. tree c. door d. bed

3. Which word is the odd one out?
a. cat b. hat c. door d. fish e. four

4. Complete the sentence with the rhyming word:
They wanted to go to the sea because that is where they found the …
a. dog b.fish c. key

2. Phonics
 
Phonic instruction is about teaching children to recognize how letters are linked to sounds. A good understanding of how phonics works will help a child read, spell, decode as well as better understand a text.

 

With this method, children learn the letters of the alphabet first and then they are taught how those letters correspond to different sounds. Children will be able to break words down into their respective parts. For example, a child will recognize that if you remove the /m/ from /mat/ you’ll get /at/ which becomes /pat/ when you add /p/.

 

Here are some examples of how parents can create phonic focused games using TinyTap.

 

1. What is the common letter? a, b, c
a. ant b. cat c. apple

2. What is the common letter? b, m, c
a. ha… b. dru…

3. What are the common letters? a, b, at
a.cat b. hat

It’s simple and fun to build your child’s reading skills using TinyTap. And the best part is that they’ll be so engaged that they won’t be aware of just how much they’re learning. If you’d like to try the game we created for building reading skills, click here. (This may take some time to load. Please be patient).

 

Good luck! And be sure to share any games you create.