Research indicates that students who learn to read before they go into Grade One will, overall, do better in school than children who don’t. At Oxford Learning centres, Sohrab Ghadially says the Little Readers program has been developed to assist pre-schoolers or any child between the ages of three to six with learning how to read and give them the skills needed to be successful as their education progresses.

“It’s not just reading,” Ghadially says, “it’s about language development.” So once a child knows how to read the next challenge is for them “to comprehend what they are reading and then being able to write, because language is something that impacts on everything that a child is going to learn in school.”

According to Ghadially, the best time to do this learning is at a very young age, before formal schooling begins. This is because children three to six years of age are anxious to learn. In fact, Ghadially likens them to sponges, “they want to absorb the information,” fed to them.

But once formal schooling begins, so too do the expectations to perform well and understand what is being taught. When children already know how to read, some of the pressure is taken off of them, and they end up being more confident in their abilities, have higher self esteem, and are “normally the kids who teachers choose to be role models in the classroom.”

Ghadially encourages parents who struggle with teaching their own children to bring them to professionals who know how to teach children. In Oxford Learning centres there are “many, many students whose parents are teachers, they teach every day.” But Ghadially says they have trouble teaching their own children because of the emotional connection.

At Oxford Learning, all of the instructors make a professional connection with the students, teaching them as individuals and designs a unique academic program that will be effective in teaching the child necessary skills. But just because they’re taught as individuals, doesn’t mean they miss out on social interaction. “They get the music, the movement, the other fun part of the program as well,’ Ghadially says.

For a list of Oxford Learning centres close to you, visit OxfordLearning.com.