Tricks to keep up their interest in learning

A book is more than just a story; it’s a magical journey that takes the mind through the creative land of the writer. In addition, reading a book can stimulate the mind in more ways than watching a television program or playing a video game ever could. Yet, with the increase in cable network television, movies, video games and computer games, children are spending less and less time reading and more time getting lost in technology’s slush pile. Watching television has a significant effect on the interaction of family, reading, and schoolwork. Here are some ways help you get your child on the reading wagon.

Motivate him by exposing him to various forms of reading material on several topics such as fables, fairy tales, drawing, crafts and cartoons. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words! The image registers in their mind immediately. Get them books with pictures so that they feel interested in browsing the book and knowing more about the topic.

Allow your children to see you enjoying a book, newspaper or other reading material. Lead by example. Just simply give a short synopsis, even books you read as a child or in the past can make children want to read, “Oh I read this great book about…”

Share bedtime stories with your children nightly. Read as many fairy tales and creative stories as possible. Share stories trying voice modulations, giving a personal touch to them. Let them imagine or ask them to change the story-endings. This will make the story an intimate adventure for you and your child.
Make few visits to the library with your children. And you shall be pleased to see them running to you with a whole bunch of books they want to take home!

Don’t be irritated with the number of questions they ask! It shows the hunger to know more, explore more as their creative side of the mind gets active.
You should be calm and patient with the pace which your child learns. Encourage reading; don’t push it so hard that they entirely lose the interest in reading.

Engaging children with various learning styles

Learning styles are different ways in which children and adults learn best. We not only come from differing localities, abilities, cultures, and home experiences, but we inherently have different learning modalities. We possess varying combinations of these styles. Your own learning style also affects your interaction with children.

The four main modalities are:
•Visual-learn by watching and looking at pictures
•Auditory-learn by being told verbal instructions
•Kinesthetic-learn by being involved and active
•Tactile-learn by doing and handling materials

Most of us expect children to sit quietly and listen to stories. Many children are capable of doing this, but for others it can be a challenge. Say, while reading out stories plan ways in which you can engage the kinesthetic and tactile learners by way of some kind of acting, movement or touch. For instance, ask them how do you dance or walk and then act them out. Visual and auditory learners are engaged during the book reading and discussion.

Difficulties in learning, reading or writing

The main reasons for reading problems are:

1. Ineffective reading instruction
2. Auditory perception difficulties
3. Visual perception difficulties
4. Language processing difficulties

Some children have auditory discrimination problems. It is not unusual for children to reverse letters and words when they read or write. They are unable to differentiate left-right, on self or paper. Lot of times kids find it difficult to pay attention on a subject at a stretch.

Children and adults who do not learn to read through an intensive phonics program often have one or more of the following symptoms:

• Below grade level reading achievement
• Slow reading
• Poor comprehension
• Fatigue after reading only for a short while
• Poor spelling skills
• Lack of enjoyment from reading
• Difficulty repeating what is said to them
• Difficulty understanding or remembering what they have just read
• Difficulty putting their thoughts on paper

Another group of children has difficulty matching the word image on the page with a previously stored image in their brain. Exercises that train the brain to "see" more accurately may help but instruction with phonics is the best approach to overcome this problem.