Just learning to read is not enough if your child is going to compete in the modern information society. Becoming a good or excellent reader is the key to your child's future.

A child that enjoys reading will consume 2-3 books a week. That can be 10-20 times more than an average reader and so the gap opens steadily between the two.

So here are 5 things that will make a huge difference to your child's reading development. We employ all of them in our Easyread System:

TIP 1 - Don't Read Books

I know that most children learn to read with books, but most also never become good readers, let alone excellent readers. Almost any child can become a good reader and there are simple reasons why they don't.

We all use whatever seems the simplest solution to a problem. If you have a bright kid, then the simplest option will seem to be to memorise the words that keep appearing in an early reader book. But, as the vocabulary increases, that gets steadily harder and you will see more and more guessing.

Eventually you will see a collapse of confidence at around 6 or 7 years old.

TIP 2 - "Dimensionalise" the Phonemes

Phonemes are the little sounds that make up words. And there are 43 of them in English. You can find them at the beginning of your dictionary. We need to make sure your child is familiar with them.

But phonemes are non-physical, abstract objects and very hard for your child to remember. So what we do is create strong visual characters to represent each one. For instance, for the sounds of the letter A we have the ants in pink pants, the ape in a cape and the ark in the park. Those are things your child can visualise and so remember.

The majority of your child's memory capacity is visual.

TIP 3 - Play These Games

We are avoiding books. So what else can you do?

We find games like these work well:

Build-A-Word. Get hold of some plastic letters and select 4 consonants and 2 vowels. Go over the sound of each one. Then say a simple and regular 3 letter word for your child to build with them (like mat, ten, fin or hit).

Select-A-Word. Write three very similar words, like hat, mat and map. Say one of them and ask your child to select which one it is.

Nonsense Words. This time, use your plastic letters to write a simple nonsense word like gab, hin, mub or wid. Ask your child to read it.

Easyread-I-Spy. This is just like the classic "I spy with my little eye..." game, except that you use the first sound of the word rather than the first letter.

TIP 4 - Less is More

You want to maximise the success of your child, so limit a reading session to 10-15 minutes maximum.

TIP 5 - Try Easyread TrainerText

TrainerText is a system we use to make ongoing reading practise much easier for the child. We float the visual images that we have created for each phoneme above the text, so that there is a clue to the sounds in each word. You can use the images you have created for Tip 2 to do the same.

That will stop your child from getting stuck and is great for building confidence.

Using these techniques you will see a new confidence developing over just a few days. The children using Easyread are more enthusiastic from day 1 and have jumped forward in their reading within 3 weeks.