When you have a child that is just beginning to read, you may wonder what strategies to implement to speed or urge the process along. Just remember that a child will read when he or she is ready to read, and not before. Pushing too hard and too early will only frustrate you both. But if your child is ready, here are some strategies you can use to make learning to read more fun and more successful.

Explore Books

Allow your child to explore different genres of books. Help him or her find meaning in the different types. You can talk about the moral of the story, the theme of the book and the details in the book with your child to get a better idea of how much your child is actually comprehending. A two year old might understand, "That is a chicken." A five year old needs to understand a bit more - what’s the chicken up to? Why? How’s he doing it? You can help your child comprehend books by having these types of discussions with her.

Use Context Clues

Teach your child how to use context clues to discover the meaning of new words. Show him that by reading other words in the sentences around the unfamiliar word, a new word can sometimes be figured out like a puzzle. First sound out the word, letter by letter. Then read the sentence in which the unfamiliar word resides. If the word can’t be figured out from that sentence, check the sentences surrounding it. You can also look at illustrations for clues as to what the meaning might be. Don’t be too quick to explain it all. Give your child a chance to figure it out for himself.

Make Predictions

Practice Predicting - Show your child how to predict what might happen in the story based on the pictures and title. Ask questions such as: What is happening in this picture? Where is it happening? What do you think might happen next? What do you think the story will be about based on this title? Try to avoid asking yes or no type questions. Your child will be more engaged in the process if there is some higher level questioning happening. Once predicting gets to be pretty easy, you can move on to cause and effect.