Generally, a child will learn to read when he or she is ready. But there are things you can do to encourage your child to develop a fondness for reading.
12. Say (O Muhammad 
) to those who disbelieve: "You will be defeated and gathered together to Hell, and worst indeed is that place to rest."
) to those who disbelieve: "You will be defeated and gathered together to Hell, and worst indeed is that place to rest."
13. There has already been a sign for you (O Jews) in the two armies that met (in combat i.e. the battle of Badr): One was fighting in the Cause of Allah, and as for the other (they) were disbelievers. They (the believers) saw them (the disbelievers) with their own eyes twice their number (although they were thrice their number). And Allah supports with His Victory whom He pleases. Verily, in this is a lesson for those who understand. (See Verse 8:44). (Tafsir At-Tabari)
14. Beautified for men is the love of things they covet; women, children, much of gold and silver (wealth), branded beautiful horses, cattle and well-tilled land. This is the pleasure of the present world's life; but Allah has the excellent return (Paradise with flowing rivers, etc.) with Him.
15. Say: "Shall I inform you of things far better than those? For Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see V.2:2) there are Gardens (Paradise) with their Lord, underneath which rivers flow. Therein (is their) eternal (home) and Azwajun Mutahharatun (purified mates or wives) [i.e. they will have no menses, urine, or stool, etc.], And Allah will be pleased with them. And Allah is All-Seer of the (His) slaves".
16. Those who say: "Our Lord! We have indeed believed, so forgive us our sins and save us from the punishment of the Fire."
17. (They are) those who are patient ones, those who are true (in Faith, words, and deeds), and obedient with sincere devotion in worship to Allah. Those who spend [give the Zakat and alms in the Way of Allah] and those who pray and beg Allah's Pardon in the last hours of the night.
18. Allah bears witness that La ilaha illa Huwa (none has the right to be worshipped but He), and the angels, and those having knowledge (also give this witness); (He is always) maintaining His creation in Justice. La ilah illa Huwa (none has the right to be worshipped but He), the All-Mighty, the All-Wise.
19. Truly, the religion with Allah is Islam. Those who were given the Scripture (Jews and Christians) did not differ except, out of mutual jealousy, after knowledge had come to them. And whoever disbelieves in the Ayat(proofs, evidences, verses, signs, revelations, etc.) of Allah, then surely, Allah is Swift in calling to account.
20. So if they dispute with you (Muhammad ) say: "I have submitted myself to Allah (in Islam), and (so have) those who follow me." And say to those who were given the Scripture (Jews and Christians) and to those who are illiterates (Arab pagans): "Do you (also) submit yourselves (to Allah in Islam)?" If they do, they are rightly guided; but if they turn away, your duty is only to convey the Message; and Allah is All-Seer of (His ) slaves.3. Aal-'Imran
) say: "I have submitted myself to Allah (in Islam), and (so have) those who follow me." And say to those who were given the Scripture (Jews and Christians) and to those who are illiterates (Arab pagans): "Do you (also) submit yourselves (to Allah in Islam)?" If they do, they are rightly guided; but if they turn away, your duty is only to convey the Message; and Allah is All-Seer of (His ) slaves.3. Aal-'Imran
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests:
- As you read, run your finger below the words to show your child that words carry the story.
- Use excited, animated voices for animal characters and don't be afraid to have fun and get your child excited.
- Take time to look at the pictures and to ask your child questions.
- If there is a phrase repeated in the story, ask your child to join in.
- Compare events in a book to similar events in your child's life.
- Answer any questions from your children, which can help them verbalize their thoughts.
- Continue reading to your child, even after the child has learned to read.
A book at bedtime could help babies to learn more quickly after researchers discovered children soak up the most information before they go to sleep.
Snoozing helps infants to develop their memory and retain new skills, a new study from the University of Sheffield has found.
The researchers say it challenges the belief held by many parents that children are better at learning when they are wide awake and alert.
“Parents receive lots of advice about what they should and shouldn’t do with their baby’s sleep schedule,” said Researcher Dr Jane Herbert, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Psychology.
“This study however examined learning opportunities around naturally occurring naps and shows just how valuable activities like reading books with young children just before they go down to sleep can be.”
The youngsters were shown how to remove and manipulate a mitten from a hand puppet and were given the opportunity to reproduce these actions after delays of four and 24 hours.
Infants who did not nap after learning were compared with infants who napped for at least 30 minutes within four hours of learning the actions.
The study, which is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that only infants who had napped after the learning activity remembered how to move the mitten.
“These findings are particularly interesting to both parents and educationalists because they suggest that the optimal time for infants to learn new information is just before they have a sleep,” added Dr Herbert.
“Until now people have presumed that the best time for infants to learn is when they are wide-awake, rather than when they are starting to feel tired, but our results show that activities occurring just before infants have a nap can be particularly valuable and well-remembered.”
The study also suggests that sleeping for longer than 30 minutes is needed to retain information and skills. Naps of shorter than 30 minutes were shown not to provide sufficient time for infants to consolidate their knowledge such that it could be retained over the long term.
Previous research has shown that, in adult, sleep can promote problem solving as well as boosting memory and learning.
The team will now look at whether sleep not only enhances the quantity of infants’ memory, but also the quality of memory such as how the recollections are used
The term “learning difficulties” is the hand grenade of education. Throw the terminology around and teachers, students, parents and school community members react widely and, at times, wildly. Some individuals ponder the term, others run frantically for a book to elicit a “definition” or “diagnostic term”, some consult with colleagues and professionals, yet others hide their heads in their hands or behind a desk.
What is a ‘learning difficulty’?
Does “learning difficulty” mean the same thing as “learning disability”? Is it different from the language of “differences” or “lack of ability”? The term “learning difficulties” refers to students who can experience difficulty with learning. The acts of reading, comprehending, inferring, questioning, memorising and recalling knowledge can be laden with difficulties.
Students can experience difficulties with learning for many different reasons. These include, for example, hearing and visual impairments; physical impairments; emotional, social or behavioural difficulties; prior education experiences; experiences at home; attention and concentration issues; and cognitive or intellectual difficulties. The impact of such difficulties may be short term or long term.
These difficulties can be seen across various domains of education. Students may struggle with written expression and constructing meaning from language, or with the fine motor skills required for handwriting. Difficulty with mathematics may present as an inability to learn basic mathematical concepts including addition, times tables and mathematical problem solving.
Reading difficulties include neurological deficits in decoding letter symbols and words, word recognition or phonological processing issues, or difficulties with comprehension. Misinterpretation of sound, touch and movement, and the inability to successfully receive, interpret and integrate sensory stimuli can lead students to actively seek or avoid sensory information, thereby impacting their ability to make sense of their learning environment.
How do kids cope with learning difficulties?
The classroom is fraught with social, emotional, physical and cognitive demands. Students enter at their own risk.
In some schools, students sit quietly at desks, awaiting teacher instruction. The first task of the lesson, to acknowledge your presence, is the first stressor for some. The simple “here” or “present” can elicit stress for any student including those with additional learning needs.
Did they hear their name? Did they have ample time to respond? Were they paying attention or watching the student across the room fiddling with their lunch order, tablet, pencil case, book, reader, art smock, calculator, diary, phone?
Next, the student must listen and watch as the lesson begins. Handouts are distributed, chapters to be completed are announced and scrawled on the board in small illegible handwriting or placed brightly on the interactive whiteboard. By now, as other students settle down to read, to learn, to memorise, some students, those with additional learning needs or difficulties, may question whether they are on task.
Did I hear that right?Am I doing what I’m supposed to?Why is everyone else working and I’m not?
These are thoughts that enter their consciousness, let alone the thoughts that whiz through their subconscious quizzing them.
Are you getting this?Isn’t this all too hard?Why are you bothering?
Negative thoughts are not the mainstay of self-talk, but more often than not questioning of skills and ability are the dominant sort of questions these learners will ask themselves. Such self-talk and vicarious experience, watching others working busily while one is yet to begin, is demoralising and increases physical and psychological restlessness.
Some students may display an exacerbation of twitchy, fiddling behaviour, such as pencil twirling, or repetitive tapping on the keyboard. Perhaps others have physiological reactions, becoming sweaty and flustered. Other students may vocalise their self-talk, mumbling and moaning that “it’s too hard” in the desperate hope that a fellow student, a teacher, an aide or a parent may come and assist them. The adoringly titled “class clown” may begin to distract themselves with irrelevant tasks, sometimes distracting other learners.
Place these same students in a classroom that focuses on a topic they love and the difference is amazing. They focus harder, persist longer, rise to more challenges, raise their hand for help and participate in class discussions. Their self-talk moves from negative to positive, fostered by the engaged classroom and teachers who appreciate and seek out each individual learners regardless of ability or difficulty. These are the good lessons, the good days.
Students with additional learning needs face myriad difficulties. Perhaps they aren’t able to see the board clearly, hear the teacher over the voices of their peers, or write down the instructions in time. Feelings of frustration, irritation and stress can flourish in such situations.
Imagine being in a room where everyone else seems to “get it”, “see it”, “hear it”, but for you. Stressful? How would you react?
Would you put your head down and ignore the calls of the facilitator? Would you begin talking to the people next to you? Would you doodle, draw, read a book? These behaviours are easy “go to” behaviours of any student who feels they are struggling.
So, what do we do?
We teach resilience. We model coping strategies. We reinforce the strengths in each individual learner.
We involve family, peers, the community of the school and their staff. We focus on what the student can do, what they enjoy, what jolts that spark in their eyes.
We accept that each learner will have bad days, but we can motivate and engage them again soon. We get to know our students, we take pride in their achievements and set their next goal.
Cue the hand-wringing about digital distraction: Fewer children are reading books frequently for fun, according to a new report released Thursday by Scholastic, the children’s book publisher.
In a 2014 survey of just over 1,000 children ages 6 to 17, only 31 percent said they read a book for fun almost daily, down from 37 percent four years ago.
There were some consistent patterns among the heavier readers: For the younger children — ages 6 to 11 — being read aloud to regularly and having restricted online time were correlated with frequent reading; for the older children — ages 12 to 17 — one of the largest predictors was whether they had time to read on their own during the school day.
The finding about reading aloud to children long after toddlerhood may come as a surprise to some parents who read books to children at bedtime when they were very young but then tapered off. Last summer, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced a new policy recommending that all parents read to their children from birth.
“A lot of parents assume that once kids begin to read independently, that now that is the best thing for them to do,” said Maggie McGuire, the vice president for a website for parents operated by Scholastic.
But reading aloud through elementary school seemed to be connected to a love of reading generally. According to the report, 41 percent of frequent readers ages 6 to 10 were read aloud to at home, while only 13 percent of infrequent readers were being read to.
Scholastic, which operates book fairs in schools and publishes popular children’s books including the Harry Potter and Captain Underpants series, has been commissioning the “Kids and Family Reading Report” since 2006. For the first time this year, the report, conducted by YouGov, a market research firm, looked at predictors that children of different ages would be frequent readers, defined as children who read books for fun five or more days a week.
Kristen Harmeling, a partner at YouGov who worked on the report, said that children in the survey frequently cited reading aloud as a special bonding time with their parents. As children age, “I don’t think that parents know how important that time and the role that it plays in children’s lives,” she said.
Of course, children who love to read are generally immersed in households with lots of books and parents who like to read. So while parents who read to their children later in elementary school may encourage those children to become frequent readers on their own, such behavior can also result from “a whole constellation of other things that goes on in those families,” said Timothy Shanahan, professor emeritus of urban education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a past president of the International Reading Association.
There is not yet strong research that connects reading aloud at older ages to improved reading comprehension. But some literacy experts said that when parents or teachers read aloud to children even after they can read themselves, the children can hear more complex words or stories than they might tackle themselves.
“It’s this idea of marinating children in higher-level vocabulary,” said Pam Allyn, founder of LitWorld.Org, a nonprofit group that works to increase literacy among young people. “The read-aloud can really lift the child.”
Other literacy experts say the real value of reading to children is helping to develop background knowledge in all kinds of topics as well as exposure to sophisticated language.
“It wouldn’t have to be reading” to accomplish that, said Catherine Snow, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “A two-minute conversation about something on television or something in a magazine or something that you’re reading yourself can also have some of the same positive effects as reading aloud.”
Although the Scholastic report found that teenagers were more likely to read frequently for fun if they had dedicated independent reading time in school, only 17 percent of all children surveyed reported having time to read a book of their choice at school daily. Just 10 percent of 12- to 14-year-olds and 4 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds reported having that time in class. Such reading time at school may be particularly important for low-income children, who reported that they were more likely to read for fun at school than at home.
While previous studies have shown little connection between independent reading time at school and better reading habits or comprehension, some large school districts, including Boston and Chicago, encourage teachers to include time in the day for students to pick books and read.
Parents also see a connection. Emily Skelding, a mother of four in New Orleans and a former middle school teacher, said that her eldest son, Sumner, 15, used to devour books as a child. But now that he has no time at school to read on his own — or perhaps more significant, to choose the books he wants to read — “he stopped reading for pleasure,” Ms. Skelding said.
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