Parenting Tips - Be A Better Parent Each Day

Click here to read the untold story of a mother who raised the inventor of the light bulb...And how to raise a genius yourself...  

  Click here to read the untold story of a mother who raised the inventor of the light bulb...And how to raise a genius yourself...

  Phonemic Awareness is defined as the ability to identify, hear, and work with the smallest units of sound known as phonemes.  It is NOT the same as phonological awareness, instead, it is a sub-category of phonological awareness. For example, phonemic awareness is narrow, and deals only with phonemes and manipulating the individual sounds of words - such as /c/, /a/, and /t/ are the individual sounds that make up to form the word "cat".   Phonological awareness, on the other hand, includes the phonemic awareness ability, and it also includes the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate larger units of sound such as rimes and onsets. Phonemic awareness can be taught very early on and will play a critical role in helping children learn to read and spell. While it's not set in stone on when a child can learn to read, however, I do believe that a child that can speak is a child that can learn to read. Children as young as two years old can learn to read by developing phone...

  Helping young children develop phonemic awareness early on is one of the keys for children to develop exceptional reading and writing skills once they begin attending school.  Did you know that studies have indicated that phonemic awareness is the single best predictor of reading success for young children once they begin school? In fact, studies have found that phonemic awareness is far better than IQ at predicting the reading and spelling abilities of young children. Most people know about phonics, and what it is; however, far fewer people know what phonemic awareness is. In short, phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and work with the phonemes. For example, /d/, /o/, and /g/, are the individual sounds of the word "dog". Please note, the letters enclosed in the slashes denote the sound of the letter and not the name of the letter. Phonemes are the smallest units of individual sounds that form a word. Phonemic awareness is not something you're born wit...

  Teaching your baby to read is becoming a more and more high priority for parents now as it becomes clear that learning to read at a young age offers numerous advantages for the child once he or she begins school.  Studies have consistently found that teaching a baby to read and helping children develop phonemic awareness well before entering school can significantly improve their development in reading and spelling. However, when it comes to teaching babies to read, there are two main teaching methods. These two main methods of teaching a baby or child to rea d are the whole language method, and the phonics and phonemic awareness method (the phonetic approach), which should be the preferred teaching method in helping children learn to read. Some prefer the whole language method, while others use the phonics approach, and there are also educators that use a mix of different approaches.  With the Look-say approach of whole language learning, a child begins with memorizin...

  Teaching children to read by teaching phonics activities is a lot like doing math, where you have to know what the numbers are, how to count, and you need to learn to add and subtract before learning to multiply and divide.  Teaching phonics to children is no different where you follow a step by step approach by first teaching the child the alphabet letters and phonics sounds, and then teaching them the combination of different letters to create different words, and using words to form sentences. It is a very logical and sequential buildup of phonics knowledge and reading ability. Before a child can learn to read, he or she must first learn the alphabet letters and know the sounds represented by the letters. It's usually easier to teach some consonants and short vowels first before moving on to more complicated things such as consonant digraphs (2 consonants formed to produce one sound, such as "ch" or "ph") and long vowels. As you can see, teaching children...