Kids love to learn new things, and you can really give a boost to their whole education if you start encouraging learning at home from a young age.  Parents teach their kids a whole range of essential skills before they reach school age, from talking through to potty training, so why not go a step further and give your kids a head start in reading and writing too.

All children learn at different speeds, so don’t push your kid into learning more than they are ready for, but you can start with simple things from quite a young age:

• Read for 30 minutes everyday – start off by setting aside about half an hour every day to read out loud to young children, and try to choose fun books with bright, colourful pictures, and encourage them to look at the pictures and follow the writing along the page with you.  Help them to start learning their alphabets early, by pointing out letters and then asking them to find them on the page for you.
• Word games – even if your child cannot write yet, they can start to learn how words go together in sentences with some simple word games.  Write out a few simple sentences on card, and then cut the words out individually.  Jumble all of the words up in a pot, and then help your child to select words to form different sentences.
• Basic Writing – many children do not learn basic letter writing before they get to school, but you can give your child a head start by writing out their name for them, and helping them to trace over the letters until they are familiar with the individual shapes.
• Library Card – it is much more cost effective to join the local library and borrow kids books, rather than buying them, and take your children along with you and encourage them to choose books for themselves, even if it is just based on the colours and pictures to start with.  As soon as they are old enough get them their own library card, and show them how to take out books, and also how to look after the books in their care.
• Audio Books – audio books are a great way of helping to encourage slow and unconfident readers, and many kid’s versions come with the book and tape, so your child can follow the words on the page as they are being spoken.  You could also tape your kid’s favourite books yourself so that they can listen to it again and again, but this should not be a complete substitute for spending time reading the book through with them yourself.
• Other reading material – don’t just stick to books, encourage your child to read all sorts of written words, from the back of cereal boxes to the television magazine.

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