Things to remember while choosing your learning aids

Choosing wrong teaching aids for your young learners can lead to reading writing issues unknowingly. Read below to know things that matters while choosing teaching materials for young learners.

No# 1: Be careful about the graphics and images on learning materials

“Is that a hat or cap?” – “Is it a cat or it looks like a cat”. Oh, it’s a lion. Children are brilliant with association and memorization of images related to sounds. It is important to utilize correct images to imprint consistent word relationships in children’s mind.

No.# 2: Directions in letter formations.

It is a common issue with many children to write everything opposite popularly known as “letter reversal issue”.
The real reason that many children fail to learn correct letter formation is because they lack proper direction from the start. Each time you teach letter formation using arrows and directions that promote incorrect positioning or the problematic ball-and-stick method, you reinforce possible letter reversal issues and difficulties.

No.# 3: Too many confusing font styles and font selections.

Young children are just starting to observe and remember the letters and words. Learning is challenging enough at times and using difficult to read font styles will drain children’s attention and add unnecessary mental work making it even more challenging for them. For the best results, font styles need to clearly differentiate similar letters and provide a natural letter formation.

No.# 4: Clarity in direction and instructions while teaching.

Children need repetitions and if you change instructions or directions of teaching every time you repeat a lesson it is confusing for children. There has to be consistency in the way directions and instructions are mentioned or given. Clear directions lead to clear action and learning.

No.# 5: Proper lesson progression.

Nature provides the fundamental insight of crawl before you walk. The appropriate order and progression of skills and concepts are essential for children to learn, adapt and maximize their efforts. As an example, teaching the long vowel sound together with the short sound before students understand the rules for using each sound creates confusion and overwhelms them. It is important to follow structure and researched progression for teaching.

No.# 6: Adequate materials.

Children need sufficient activities and adequate practice in one area at a time to reinforce patterns and concepts to prevent materials from being forgotten.

No.# 7: Consistency.
Consistency in activities, instructions, and concept introductions provide easy to understand and complete direction.

No.# 8: Incorrect word examples.
An often overlooked mistake is to teach words that begin with a letter different from the correct beginning sound. As an example, using the words arm or airplane to teach the letter A sound, when in fact these words begin with a different phoneme sound.