Reading development begins at birth! Some adults think that learning to read does not start until children go to school. However, even babies can begin to acquire the skills essential to reading. Their experience with spoken language and with different reading materials all contribute to the development of these skills.

Skilled Reading Requires Several Skills.

• The English system is based on "phonemes" or sounds. That means that each letter symbol is linked to a sound or phoneme. Phonemes cannot easily be heard because when we speak the sounds in each syllable and word are combined into one sound eg: when speaking the word ‘dog’, the ear hears one sound, not three as in ‘d’, ‘o’, ‘g’.