Ways to develop interest in reading in your child

Learning to read is not a 1-step milestone that can be categorized into knows-to-read days and doesn’t-know-to read days with a ‘eureka’ moment. It is a very gradual process. It involves various steps that need to be covered. It involves various pre-reading skills that need to be mastered.

Most children master the art of reading, sooner or later, with help or without help. But what generally fails to develop in them is the passion to read. They read because they ‘have to read’. They don’t read because they ‘want to read’. 

Our children don’t see us reading much. The love for novels is almost restricted to hard-core book lovers in this fast-pace life. Magazines are passé. General junta reads newspapers, signboards and bills. In fact newspaper reading is also metamorphosing into news reading on .coms. 

Children of this generation feel that we don’t really need to learn to read so much. Learning to read has no survival value to them. They perceive, from our behavior, that reading doesn’t belong to the list of must-have skills. They don’t realize that we are silently reading so many things around us. They don’t realize that we wouldn’t be able to survive if we couldn’t read. 

To make it more difficult for our children, they have just too many distractions. There are T.V, computer, tablet, i-pad, play-station and many alike to pull them from books. There are DVDs of all concepts and all stories, which are far more appealing than boring books of the same concepts and stories.

So our children haven’t failed to develop interest in reading. We have failed in helping them develop the same. It is tough and challenging. It is not to easy to use simple alphabets and numbers to stimulate these sharp young minds. 

Before you choose to hit the panic button, let’s see if few of these suggestions help you in generating that fun, interest, passion in reading, in your child.

• Scrap book: for smaller kids, there can be a page dedicated to one sound. If there is a b-page, a collage of photos of ball, balloon, baby, bib, boy, bear, beach etc can be used. For bigger kids, a scrap book of themes can be made and the child can be asked to keep looking for words and pictures in books/magazines/newspapers and, cut and paste them in the book. (cutting not to be done without asking you, of course) 
•  Hopscotch: draw the grid on the floor and write a word in each box. You call out a word and the child has to jump to that box. Fun doubles when child calls out and you jump 
• Board-game: create your own board-game by drawing grids and writing small instructions like “jump” or “smile”, where the players have to roll the dice and follow the instructions. 
• Notes: write notes generously and stick them around the house. Small love notes like “Mumma loves you” near study table or instruction note like “brush for 2 minutes” in the bathroom will be whole-heartedly welcomed by your child. 
• Hunt: tell your child that you have hidden a few alphabets written in separate chits in a room. All the alphabets put together will make a particular word and he needs to find the chits. As he finds all the chits hidden from various corners of the room, put them together and ‘brainstorm’ which word it can be. For bigger kids, words can be hidden and found to make sentences, or a list of objects can be given to them and they need to find those objects from different parts of the house and collect them at one place. 
• Letter: in the era of e-mails and SMS, hand-written letters are almost obsolete. But the thrill of sending and receiving letters is not. One feels elated to receive a letter or a greeting card. Encourage your child to write/draw something for a close relative. Make sure to post it. Request the receiver to send a reply. 
• Grocery list: you make this day in and day out, either on paper or in your head. But your child doesn’t know about it. Why not involve him too! It’s a great way of teaching the utility of reading and writing. 
• Shopping: when you are in the store with your child, you may ask him to look for ‘tomato ketchup’ while you hunt for something else. Ask him to check the expiry-date of the product. Ask him to tick off the item from the grocery list. 
• Story drawing: you may give some word-cues, which can be used to draw a picture. Later, the child may narrate a story based on the picture. Bigger children can be given sentences to read and draw, to create a scene, on which they can base and narrate a story. 
• Reading together: simple and yet effective. Read a comic book together. The giggles and snickers come free with that. 
• Reading out: again, simple and effective. When you read out a story to your child, he learns a lot about the correct way of reading, besides feeling ecstatic for being your centre of attention for full 15 minutes

Especially for grade 1 onwards

• The night reporter: have your child write 4-5 important events of his day before bedtime. Ask him to read it like a news-reporter to everyone.
• Cooking: cook with a recipe book open. Have your child in the kitchen. Ask him to help you out with the ingredients, measurement and steps. Children love to cook with parents, especially if they feel that they are directing the whole thing.
• Playing detective: write a letter in codes to your child. Hide the decoding formula somewhere in the house. Give him hints to find the formula. When he finds and decodes the letter, reward him with something
• Karaoke: read and sing-along! Learn and have fun. Whether your singing skills are anything to write home about or not, the act of reading the lyrics together and singing is simply rejuvenating.
• Directions: when you are out with your child, ask him to read the name of the shop, street to ‘help’ you out with the directions.

The activities can definitely be simplified or made more complex to suit the age/need of each child.

Happy reading !!

play ideas- for tiny tots

Keeping a 1 year old one busy is quite a task! Mothers have been known to have lost weight and patience, running around with and after the toddler the whole day. Toddlers, who have just skilled the art of walking and running, are best known for their ‘restlessness’. Parents often find themselves exhausted just keeping the young one busy with a suitable toy. A particular toy may become boring after a while. So parents end up emptying their wallets in keeping the toy-room full at home.

While there are many toys available in the market for this age group, there are many things you can do at home, without really draining out your salary into toy shop’s account. 

You should try with a rough routine to follow for your young one. You need not wait for the child to go to school for a routine to start. A little bit of routine helps the child to expect ‘what next’. This reduced restlessness. You may make a pictorial time table on a piece of paper and stick it on wall/fridge at a height where your toddler can see. It shouldn’t be very complicated. Just the time for major activities like brush teeth, bath, eat, nap, play, sleep. Pictures should be simple enough for your little one to understand. It may seem very daunting in the beginning, but a little bit of organized playtime definitely goes a long way in channelizing the toddler’s energy along with enhancing his cognitive skills. Not to mention, it also goes a long way in restoring the sanity of a frazzled mom!

Activities for your 1 year old one!

•  Reading stories to the child (the content of the story doesn’t matter as much as your intention to read)
•   Looking at board books/ cloth books/ pop-up books together
• Singing rhymes to the child
• Scribbling with big crayons or chalks (the size of adult-male thumb). You may use papers, or a lap-slate or an easel for the same.
•  Catching-throwing-kicking a soft large ball (a soft-plastic or cloth ball should do)
•  Traditional active-rhymes like “Simon says”, “now I see a”, “mulberry bush”, “ring-a-ring-o-roses” (initially while you sing and perform, the child may ‘perform’ with you. Later you may sing or put the CD and the child can dance to the songs)
•  Walking together in park (It’s a great source of information for your toddler, who is observing many things around as you are explaining.  It’s a great source of bonding too.)
•  Digging sand/soil in the garden or sand-area with plastic shovels
•  Playing with play-dough or natural-dough with food colors
•  Playing with shapes/size/color puzzles
• Throwing soft balls into a basket kept at a distance.
• Painting the walls of the shower area with old shampoo mixed with food color
• Making towers- of cushions, building blocks, empty DVD boxes, light-weight empty cartons (breaking the pile is more fun! This building, breaking, re-building can sufficiently engage him to give relaxed-cuppa-coffee-time to you) 
• Playing with water-balloons ( lightly filled, so that they don’t burst easily)
•  Playing traditional outdoor games indoor, like catch-me, hide and seek
• Matching cap-bottle (have lots of bottles and their caps. Mix them up. Have your toddler figure out which cap will fit which bottle)
• Thumb printing, vegetable dabbing on a sheet (make sure to spread lots of newspaper on floor for easy cleaning)
• Collecting all coins in a box ( you give few thick plastic coins/ small balls and ask the child to put all of them in an empty metal box. The ‘clink’ sound is very gratifying. Emptying the box out on floor is even more satisfying.)
•  Stacking spoons in a Styrofoam/thermocol slab (it should be thick enough to hold spoons. You get plenty of such pieces in the packing material when you buy some furniture or electronic item. Store them!)
•  Pouring water from one glass into another (if the weather permits). As children love to play with water, this can engage them for quite some time!

Toys(useful but not mandatory) for your 1 year old one!

• Push-along or pull-along toys
•  Large truck-toys that can carry smaller toys too
• Stacking cups
• Interlocking rings
• 2-4 piece(large) puzzles
• Light-weight balls
• Shape sorter with large pegs for easy grip
• Alphabet boards, where you press the alphabet and the sound comes
•  Musical toys (drums, 1 button-touch keyboard)
•  Board books/ cloth books/ Pop-up books
• Activity tables
• Rocking horse
• Soft toys/ Hand puppets
• Pretend-play toys like telephone, tea-set, dolls

What is mathematics for small kids?

When we think of mathematics, we think of numbers, addition, subtraction, tables etc. But maths is actually much more than that. we need to be sure that our child has mastered his pre-maths skills before getting his head deep into numbers. We must teach pre-maths skills to the child. Also, when we are teaching numbers or any computational skill to the child, we must explain to him the usefulness and need in our day to day life.

Mathematical concepts to be taught to a preschooler:

1. Shapes: a 3 year old can be easily taught to identify the various simple shapes like circle, squares, rectangle, triangle, star and oval. He can also be taught the 3-D shapes like cubes, cuboids, cylinders and pyramids. To teach 3-D shapes, it’s a good idea to stack up the 2-D shapes and show him how it forms the 3-D ones. Like how 10 circular cardboard pieces stacked tall would make a cylinder. He should be explained the number of sides each figure has and shown the related objects from around the house that he is familiar with. When we show the particular shaped object to him, he understands two things- the shape and the usefulness of its knowledge!
2. Counting: remembering numbers doesn’t make sense to any child. When we ask him to simply repeat 1-20 he cannot make head or tail out of it. But when we teach numbers through counting real objects to begin with, it does make a lot of sense to the child. So start counting right from the very early days. Count anything to everything, like spoons (when you setting table), stairs (when you are climbing up or down), balls (when you are arranging), toy-cars (when he is playing with them), vehicles on road (when you are travelling together), bogies of train (when you are waiting at the train crossing) etc. Later, move on to counting in print- both objects and number representations- upto 20.
3. Positions: the child should learn the positional concepts like above and below, inside and outside, left, middle and right, top and bottom, far and near etc. You should teach first using the real objects and people before moving to printed material.
4. Comparisons: learning maths requires the basic concept of comparisons very clear. For example, more and less, heavy and light, long and short, tall and short, wide and narrow, costly and cheap etc. Again use examples from everyday life before moving onto doing activities in books. Step up on the weighing scale and show him what the pointer indicates. Then tell him to step up and show him his weight. He will learn that 60 kg is heavier than 12 kg. Give him an inch tape and show him how the fridge is 50 cms away from the cupboard, while the oven is only 20 cms away. Thus oven is closer to the cupboard than the fridge is. This also teaches him the concept of measurement.
5. Patterns and balance: teach him how continuation of a design makes a pattern. Like many Vs put together make a zig-zag pattern. Similarly teach him balance through the concept of symmetrical versus asymmetrical shapes. Like how a pair of trousers is symmetrical and how a cloud is asymmetrical. Patterns and balance give him a very good idea of non-geometric designs.
6. Basic computation: give him two coins and ask him to return one. Ask him how many does he have remaining. Similarly, give him two biscuits and soon give him two more. Ask him how many he has now. These are some of the easiest ways of teaching that there is something called addition and subtraction.
7. Sorting and grouping: show him that pizza, chips, curd, rice are all edibles; TV, fridge, computer, oven are all appliances; chair, table, stool, and almirah are all furniture. So food, appliances, furniture etc are called groups and things belong to some group or the other. This will teach him to sort out a cluster of objects into various groups according to the similarity they hold in common.
8. Time and date: small children have a very vague idea of time. They cannot clearly understand how much is 2 minute or how long is 2 hours or 2 days and which one is shorter. It’s not a bad idea to show them the clock that has big and bold numbers written on it and explain that the short arm indicates the hour and long one indicates the minutes. To teach days and dates, it’s best to use calendars. Have one calendar for him, mark the important dates, teach him to count days before that date etc.

teaching the usefulness of maths:

We are using numbers day in and day out. But our children don’t ‘see’ us doing so. So they doubt the use of learning 1-2-3-4, odd number, even number, multiplication in their text books like crazy. They  need to be given some pre-maths skills first and then shown how we use numbers in our lives continuously.

Let the child feel that numbers are beyond the activity books too. And how numbers are used in our day-to-day life to make things easy for us, like

1. temperature setting in oven, fridge, AC
2. time setting in washing machine,
3. reaching a particular channel on TV
4. dialling someone’s number on phone
5. shopping for the correct size of the T-shirt 
6. measuring height and weight of the family members
7. measuring two things and understanding if one thing will fit into the other or not
8. number plates of cars
9. while ordering for a pizza how many people are there, so how many pizzas should be ordered, how much money should we keep for the delivery boy and so on.

Creative activities for small kids

Keeping a preschooler occupied creatively is a big task. Children between the ages of 2-5 are most dynamic, active and sharp. They find it difficult to sit idle and parents find it difficult to keep pace with the high voltage play. Parents can play together only till a point and then want the child to play on his own as they get tired and have a lot of other chores to do as well. But the moment they want to leave, the child makes a huge drama because his energy is still bubbling inside and his need to play is not yet satiated. It’s very important to satiate this need else it may get expressed negatively in the form of hyperactivity, aggression, fighting, irritability etc. Children are also known for their boredom that comes with repetition of a game. So all in all, it becomes quite a monumental responsibility to think of new plays and games.

So here comes a list of some very interesting and educational activities that can be played by the child, with someone or by himself:

To do together:

1. Read or look at books, children encyclopaedias and photo albums together.
2. Collect pebbles, leaves, flowers when you take your child to park or beach. Talk about the various shapes, textures, colors of each thing and their role in nature. Create a scrap book and stick flowers and leaves in that. Color the pebbles and use them as decorative pieces. Your child will learn a lot about environment through this activity and will be thrilled to show off his collection to guests.
3. Take a bowl of beans and have him stick them on a picture to make an art-work. This is a good activity for visual motor coordination and concentration.
4. Give him an inch-tape and teach him how to measure small distances, like from table to chair or from fridge to the cupboard. It teaches him about comparative distances (far/near) and numbers.
5. If you have a weighing scale at home, teach him how to weigh objects. Then give him objects of his choice and let him weigh them. This is a great way to teach comparative weights (light/heavy) and numbers.
6. Evergreen role-plays like doctor-patient, shopkeeper-customer, and passenger-bus driver are a good way to teach social skills. If you do role play of child-parent where you become the child and he becomes the parent, you might be amazed to find out his perceptions and ideas on parenting.
7. Play rough games like pillow fighting, tug of war using old dupattas, bedsheets etc. It discharges that ‘extra’ energy that would otherwise not let the child sit for a minute.
8. Make obstacle course in the corridor using small cartoons, small boxes, and plastic bottles and ask him to run and jump. Time him and maintain a record sheet. He would love to break his own records.
9. Hide and seek the toy, Simon says and Pin the tail are some indoor games that a child is bound to enjoy, besides the traditional ones like snakes and ladders, ludo, knots and crosses etc.
10. Hide and seek, tag, ocean-island and chain-run are some of the old fashioned but highly entertaining outdoor games that you can play with your child indoors too. You can use a small plastic ball, a plastic bat and a sideways inverted box to play golf too.
11. All children love coloring. And they love it even more when it’s done innovatively. Like vegetable dabbing, balloon dabbing, thumb printing etc. make a display board and stick his paintings on that.
12. Give him Atta-dough and ask him to roll out chapatti for you, while you cook vegetables. If he does it neatly, cook that chapatti for him. It will surely do wonders to his self-esteem if he can serve that chapatti to other family members.
13. Take small cans and put small items like coins, paper clips, sand, and marbles in the cans, making two cans of each kind. Let the child shake any two cans and see if the sound that comes is same. It enhances auditory memory and auditory recognition skills.
14. Take cotton balls and put different scents on them like perfume, toothpaste, peppermint, coconut oil etc. Blindfold him and ask him to smell them and recognize the odour. It enhances olfactory recognition skills.
15. Put some objects in a box. Blindfold your child, tell him the name of one object and ask him to take it out from the box. It enhances the sense of texture, shape, 3-dimensional feel and visual memory skills.
16. Use alphabet stencils and sketch pens and have him trace letters to make a sign board, like ‘welcome’ for the main door, or ‘cold’ for the refrigerator or ‘hot’ for the microwave.

To do alone:

1. Give him a coloring book, crayons and plenty of time to color as much as he wants. You can give him wooden puzzles or construction toys to play with too.
2. Give him a small box and some wool strings. Ask him to wrap the box with the strings in a way that box cannot be seen.
3. Give him a sheet of plain paper and a pencil to scribble on it. Ask him to ‘write’ a letter to his grandparents. Let him have freedom to scribble the way he wants. Make sure to post it to his grandparents later.
4. Cover the dining table with a big bedsheet and put some of his toys, favorite finger foods and a pillow inside. Tell him it’s his house and he can play inside for the next, say, 30 minutes.
5. Give him a bowl with mixed beans and legumes like chick pea, green moong, red rajma, white rajma etc. Give him 5-6 small bowls and ask him to sort the beans out. Instead of mixed beans, you can use mixed stationary items, cutlery items too.
6. Play dough, home made or readymade! Kids can spend hours making colourful stuffs and it’s very good for their visual motor coordination, creativity and concentration.
7. Use home made musical instruments like guitar (rubber bands tied on a plastic box), drums (kitchen utensils) and other ready made instruments like ghatam, whistle, musical toys etc. Dress him like a rock star and let him have fun with his musical talents.
8. Give him child-safe scissors and old newspapers. When children are allowed to do tearing, cutting like this, their destructivity gets channelized and you get less experiments done with your office files, bedsheets, curtains etc.
9. Let him play scavenger hunt. Give him a list of things by drawing the objects. Give him a basket/bucket and tell him to collect these objects from around the house.
10. If weather and health permit, give him soap and water and the desired object, like doll, ball, a utensil etc, that needs to be cleaned. Children love to clean and you can surely make use of this!