Are you one of those parents who often complains to yourself, “Why is reading so hard for my child?” You may not know, but almost 40% of children are facing the same problem. The reasons are many and varied. Sometimes children have a disability that makes it difficult for them to learn to read. Others come to school without the basic literacy background they need to become proficient readers.

With prompt help, most reading problems can be resolved, but many parents don’t realize it or choose to ignore it altogether. This would suggest that by enrolling the child in a primary school, the parents have absolved themselves of any further responsibility for the child’s academic progress.

This turns out to be counterproductive and unfortunate. Few people realize that a child is ready to learn to read when he starts to talk. And this window of opportunity is so short that if a child is not given the right opportunity and cannot read at any level of proficiency by grade 3, in most cases the chances of catching up will be non-existent. According to the historical study by Hart and Risley, there is a well-established correlation between prior knowledge and reading comprehension. Students who have it succeed. Students who don’t do it simply fail, and the differences are identifiable from the age of 3.

This often results in a loss of self-esteem and behavior problems. As children grow older, many of them drop out of school, and of those who manage to graduate from high school, only 2% of students gain admission to a four-year course at the university.

Nearly a decade after Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act with the goal of achieving 100% proficiency in Math and Reading, most states have achieved less than 30% proficiency. Not surprisingly, 68% of all 8th grade students could not even meet grade level reading standards.

This is why the importance of early childhood education is steadily gaining recognition under the Obama administration. And, as a result, many public and private schools are offering pre-kindergarten (preschool) as part of the elementary school experience. However, this has yet to alter the fact that more than 1.2 million students will drop out of school this year. This gives an average of 6,000 children who simply say “No” to higher education every school day.

Of course, you don’t want to be a part of this scenario. In other words, regardless of time or money constraints, you have set a high goal for yourself and will do what is best for your child.

So where and when should a parent start building preschool reading tutoring skills and teaching the child to learn to read? For starters, have you considered that once your baby is old enough you can put him on your lap and start reading him nursery rhymes? At this stage the child is very receptive; a book is like a toy and listening to you read, a way of learning.

The next step is to educate yourself to put your child on the right path to learning. Fortunately, this will cost you little in terms of time and money.

With English being a widely spoken language, hundreds of research studies from around the world will show you that phonics is the best way to teach children to read. This covers people with dyslexia (a problem identifying alphabets) and other learning disabilities.

By the way, English is a phonetic language. Since children learn to speak by imitating sounds and combining them to make words, learning to read through phonics has had excellent results. Phonemes, the smallest units that make up spoken language, combine to form words and syllables, and phonemic awareness is the foundation of spelling and word recognition skills.

Today, all countries that have a phonetic language teach reading through phonetics. The only exception is the US, which adopted the whole word approach to teaching reading eighty years ago. This method relies more on memorizing words (and some guesswork) than on how the words actually sound. Although in the early days this may have had its merit; in the current context it is a disaster.

With more expectations of new entrants to the school as the résumés suggest, and a workforce that is 80% teachers ill-equipped to give your children the chance they deserve, your only option is to pick up a good reading manual and give it a try. give your child a safe start by teaching at home.

Remember, no matter how indifferent or full of holes a system may be, it is up to you to protect your child. In your future lie all your hopes and aspirations.