Top Ten Myths of Reading 9

Myth 9. Reading is only a mental activity.

Truth: Instead, include tactile or kinesthetic teaching and have the child touch and trace each letter. Learning to read by seeing and hearing is enhanced when adding other senses. Not using touch (and taste and smell, where possible) with reading may be incomplete learning. On the picture-letter phonics cards, the adult touches a finger under the letter on the left and says the sound, then touches under the picture on the right and says the word. Example: (as you move your finger left to right) say, "ă, apple." Later let the child touch them.

             Reading is hearing with your eyes. TGM picture-letters and stories tap into all different types of learning: left-brained logic with the letters and sounds, right-brained imagination with the colorful, enchanting picture-letters, kinesthetic learning by touching the letters while saying the sounds, and rhyming- which is one of the easiest ways to remember things.
 

 

Children also remember the way their mother smells while she reads to them on her lap (or by her side or lying on the bed). This actually helps them learn better. 

 

You can also help your child make letter cookies out of dough, use 3-D magnetic letters, color-code vowels versus consonants, and so many things to involve all the senses, even smells. But first and foremost importantly, the picture-letters.

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