Reading is important for everyday life skills such as getting a job and simply understanding a bus schedule. Reading is also a wonderful form of entertainment. Take time to work with your child on building strong reading skills. Don't forget to let him see you enjoying a good book.

Sight Words

One of the first steps in reading is learning what teachers call sight words. Sight words are words that are frequently seen in reading material. They are often (but not always) short. Sight words do not follow a specific spelling pattern like it, bit, fit, hit, pit, and sit. Children must either learn to sound out the word, or to simply memorize them.

School districts begin to teach and evaluate children on sight words in kindergarten. Depending on the school district, children are responsible for 20 to 30 of these words. Check with your child's teacher to see which ones are currently being taught at school.

Learning to Read

Once a child has mastered a number of basic sight words, he is ready for stories with short sentences. Often these stories follow a pattern:

The boy ran to the tree.

The boy ran to the wagon.

The boy ran to the fence.

The boy ran to the mailbox.

The boy ran and ran and ran.

Do not be worried that your child is only memorizing the word pattern. This kind of repetition and tackling the different words at the end of each sentence is a typical beginning reading skill.

Reading for Fun

As your child learns to read, he will have several levels of reading skills. You can help foster his enjoyment of reading by:

• Choosing some books for him to read for fun. The words should be mostly ones that he can read without difficulty.

• Choosing some books to read together. Take turns reading the pages in a book.

• Choosing some books that are too hard for your child to read. Read these out loud to encourage your child to build his reading skills. There are lots of great books out there!