Learning to read and write in childhood

Learning English

Playing is the work of children; through playing and interacting children learn their speech, listening, reading and writing. Learning to read and write was an exciting adventure to me as a young child. This adventure typically begins at infancy and last throughout life. The foundation of reading and writing was laid when I began learning that books are meant to be read and not to be chewed and that words and pictures are different. I went through different stages when I was learning to read and write in my childhood.

The first stage was the exploring stage. During this stage my favorite activities were tasting, touching, and sometimes tearing were what I did when I was discovering books. Though my parents did not enjoy all these I had the opportunity of exploring written material.my parents bought me toddler books that were made of hard cardboard hence difficult for me to tear them. The second stage was repetition and anticipation. When I grew older I began copying my siblings and parents by pretending to read. I frequently asked my parents to read a book repeatedly since I anticipated the chain of events. This repetition also made me develop an understanding of how the events were connected. As I discovered that stories have a beginning, middle and end I learned to memorize these stories and retell them accurately. During the third stage I began understanding that the pictures and words in the books serve different purposes. I then understood that the words written are symbols of the thoughts and ideas.at the fourth stage I learned to identify and match words (Lesia, Pg 2).

Despite the fact that I did not understand the meaning of the particular sentences or words I could run my fingers along the sentences pointing to individual words in the book. Following with my fingers helped me to learn that words are found within sentences from left to right and they are placed in a particular order. Pre-school teachers used to make patterns with objects like buttons, colored cubes and beads. Putting these things in order helped me understand sequences. Another exercise that made me understand that letters have to be written in a particular order was playing matching games. This also helped in discovering that letters have to go in a particular order.