How early can children learn to read?

/By AzerNews/

By Laman Sadigova

Surprisingly, but children begin to learn language from the day they are born. Their speech and language skills become more complex as they grow up.

During early speech and language development, children learn skills that are important to the development of literacy.

A famous magazine Child Development wrote that children should begin to learn the first elements of the written language not in the age of 5-6 years, but three, when they have the ability to distinguish the image of the printed and written word.

The results of the research show that an ability of understanding written words appears very early. Based on these data, it is possible to assess those children who are most likely to read in a very early age, Rebecca Treiman from Washington University in St. Louis said.

Researchers showed children pictures of words and schematic pictures of dogs, some of which were signed with the word "dog". Featuring next picture child experimenters read the words written on the card, and after a while they showed these pictures again and asked to name the word written on the photos.

In some cases, psychologists said “puppy” instead of “dog” and, comparing how often children repeated their “mistake”, the authors tried to find out whether they associated some importance to specific words.

In other words, Treiman and her team checked whether the child understands that the word "dog" means only dog but not a dog and a puppy at the same time.

As the experience showed, children of three years old are able to recognize this distinction, which means that they understand what the character and the role they play in writing.

You can help your child develop literacy skills during regular activities without adding extra time to your day. There are also things you can do during planned play and reading times. Show your children that reading and writing are a part of everyday life and can be fun and enjoyable.