How children learn and how to use this to teach your child to read

You can make teaching your child to read a very easy process when you know how learning happens in the brain. It works the same way for young children as it does for adults, but because everyone his learning is new; it is important that you understand the process.

Below I will explain the two main learning processes and later I will tell you how you can apply this to teach your child to read. We have recently discovered how these two processes, myelination and mirror neurons, work through the enhancement and use of imaging technology.

mirror neurons

When you perform an action, such as walking, talking, writing, reading, or playing the piano, neurons in your brain fire, sending signals to various regions of the brain and muscles throughout the nervous system.

However, a mirror neuron will fire when it is observing an action; In other words, when you are watching another person perform an action, your brain acts as if it were you who performs the action.

What this basically means is that you literally learn by watching.

myelination

Myelin is the lining that covers the neural pathways along which signals travel in the brain. This is like the plastic or rubber coating that covers electrical wires that prevents the wires from “leaking” electricity. Myelin is the gray matter of your brain and accounts for most of its mass.

This insulating effect is very weak in children, as they are still learning, and it becomes thicker through the repeated firing of a neuron.

So when your child first learns to read, this sheath of myelin is very thin, but with repeated practice it gets thicker and thicker; And the thicker this myelin sheet is, the better your child will be able to read.

How to use this information to teach your child to read

Your child first learns by watching. they walk upright because you walk upright (wild children walk like the animals that raised them, for example). Your son will want to read because he sees you reading. You as a parent already know that everything you do will be copied, and now that you know it’s thanks to these mirror neurons, you can use this to your advantage.

When you sit down and read, or read with or to your child, you will want to copy what you do, and this is the first step in teaching your child to read.

Myelin increases when your child practices an action and the more he practices, the thicker this myelin sheet becomes and the better he performs in the practiced activity.

You can make this learning process easier for your child by going from big to small and from wide to more detailed. Let me explain.

When you are teaching your child to read, start by teaching him the reading process. Start by getting them to read a book as soon as possible. There is nothing more confusing for a child than learning to read one word at a time when he wants to read a whole book like you do.

The easiest way to do this is to teach them the 100 most common words in English (this simple action allows them to read half of everything written in English) and start with very simple books.

This encourages reading and takes the homework out of learning. Your son is now doing what you are doing (mirroring what you are doing), except he is starting at a lower level.

From here you just have to expand their reading skills by teaching them phonicswhich, as you are already reading, will take you like a fish in water.

Learning to read and teaching your child to read is an easy and enjoyable process when you understand how naturally children can do it. They don’t have to fight and neither do you. By simply understanding the learning process and applying an easy-to-use reading system, your child should be reading in less time than she could have imagined.