Let your child be familiar with books.

Words cannot become a part of your child’s vocabulary unless there is usage by your child. If you hear your child using correctly the words you have spoken to him/her, then you can be assured that the words have been understood and learned.
Once your child is able to pronounce the words and speak to you with whatever language you have been teaching him/her, it is time to have your precious child become familiar with one of the most important things in his life, books. Let him/her be familiar with books and the pictures, colours as well as the words in them.

A child imitates in order to learn. You are the child’s role model. Let the child see you enjoy the stories in the books. Read to your child. Let him see your mouth form the words so that he/she can do likewise. Once he/she can read simple words, your child can go on to reading stories. Start with very short, simple stories. Such stories are easily obtainable from books from the local library.

That was how my wife and I taught my children and my nephew how to read English books. We took the children to the library, sat them down on comfortable little chairs, and introduced the pictures in the books available there. Before this, we had already talked to them, my children and my nephew, in English. By the time we took them to the library, they could talk with very simple vocabulary. My elder son could say “Water the plants,” as he walked unsteadily around the plants in our compound with a sprayer in one hand. My nephew, about two years older than my elder son, would laugh at him and tell me about what he saw in English. We would teach them the names of things by saying the words and sentences and they would repeat them. Very soon, we had them read words and very short sentences.

Once my precious children and nephew could read simple sentences, we bought the already well-known Ladybird readers. The ladybird series go from easy most often used words to more difficult once, introducing the words gradually and repeatedly use whatever vocabulary which has been introduced earlier. In this manner, a child effortlessly remembers the words.

With such a reading aid, I noticed that my children and my nephew progressed easily and the desire to read more stories in English was well established after a fairly short time, especially when they realized they could read well. My son told me, that realization itself gave him the incentive to want to read even more. Each night, just before bedtime, my sons and my nephew (whenever my nephew stayed the night at my place which was quite often) would eagerly start reading the next outing or adventure of the two children and their dog.

After being able to complete the ladybird reading series, parents ought to make available books with suitable vocabulary for the children to continue this pleasurable past-time.

From here onwards, all that are required are suitable reading materials, perhaps chosen by the children themselves, with praise of the children's capabilities whenever visitors to the house offer opportunities to do so.

And reading is obviously one of the most important ways to learn, to gain knowledge, to know other civilizations, to understand other humans on this earth and to harvest the benefits of other people’s experiences which may take too many life-times to experience personally.

Thus, I consider the ability to read and understand one of the most important ways to put our precious children on a strong footing for success in life.