*Update: I have written a more comprehensive eBook with specific strategies you can use to teach your child to read. Get the eBook I Can Teach Teach My Child to Read: A 10-Step Guide for Parents as a PDF or Kindle version.
As a former first grade teacher, teaching children to read is one of my greatest passions! But because most children don’t start actually “reading” until around 6 years old (which is upwards of the targeted age range for my blog), I didn’t want parents to feel pressured that their 3-year old needs to start reading (which, by the way, they don’t!). However, the information shared below is general information that is beneficial for children of all ages, whether your child is ready to read or not. Don’t implement all of these strategies at once, nor should you expect your child to be able to do everything right away. It is a process and this information is simply for you to implement when you feel your child is ready.
Please also recognize that although the suggestions below are labeled as “steps”, they are not necessarily in consecutive order, nor are they in order of importance. The information you will find here is simply a guide to help you see how each of the components of reading fit together!
1. Read to your child
Teaching your child to read is truly a process that begins at infancy. (No, I am most certainly NOT advocating programs that claim to teach your baby to read using flashcards!) What I AM encouraging you to do is to begin reading with your newborn within days of welcoming her home! Not only is this a special bonding time for the two of you, it instills in her a love for books. Enjoyment while reading is one of the single greatest predictors of reading success in school-age children. If children don
’t learn from an early age to enjoy reading, it will most likely hinder their ability sometime down the road.
Here are a few suggestions for the types of books to read to your child. But by all means, read whatever your child responds to and enjoys!
- Birth-1 Year: Lullabies, Board Books (with real pictures), Cloth Books (with various textures), Song Books
- 1 Year-3 Years: Rhyming Books, Song Books, Short-Story Board Books
- 3 Years-5 Years: Alphabet Books, Song Books, Picture Books, Rhyming Books
2. Ask questions
Asking questions while reading to your child is not only great for encouraging your child to interact with the book, but it is also extremely effective in developing his ability to comprehend what he is reading. You see, if our main objective in “reading” is getting our child to “sound out” words, we have missed the boat entirely. Even children who can decode words and “read” with great fluency still might not be able to comprehend what they are reading. If a child can’t comprehend what he is reading, there really is no point to reading at all!
While your child is a baby, ask him questions such as, “Do you see the cat?” while pointing at the picture of the cat. This will not only develop his vocabulary, it will also encourage him to interact with the book that he is reading. As he gets older, ask him to point to things in the book himself and make the noises of the animals he sees.
Once your child is about 2 or 3-years of age, begin asking questions before, during, and after reading the book. Show your child the cover of the book and ask him what he thinks it is going to be about (predicting). While reading, ask him what he thinks is going to happen or why he thinks a character made a particular choice (inferring). If a character is depicting a strong emotion, identify that emotion and ask your child if he has ever felt that way (connecting). At the end of the book, ask if his prediction(s) came true. Afterwards, ask him to tell you what he remembered happening in the book (summarizing).
Modifying each of these techniques during read-alouds to meet the developmental stage of your child is a great way to promote and increase reading comprehension!
3. Be a good (reading) example
Even if your child is fascinated with books from an early age, her fascination will quickly dwindle if she does not see reading modeled in her home. If you are not an avid reader yourself, make a conscious effort to let your children see you reading for at least a few minutes each day! Read a magazine, a cookbook, a novel, your Bible…it’s up to you! But show your child that reading is something that even adults need to do. If you have a son, share this article with your husband. Sons need to see their fathers read, especially since it is not something that young energetic boys are naturally prone to doing.
As parents, we can sometimes get wrapped up with what exactly our children should be doing to be successful. But we often forget that children often learn by example. Grab a book and take a load off…for your child’s sake, of course!
4. Identify letters in natural settings
Before our boys were born, we painted and hung large wooden letters spelling their name above the cribs as a decorative accent in their rooms. I would have never guessed that those wooden letters would have such a learning incentive for Big Brother! Around age 2.5, he began asking what letters were above his name. That’s honestly how he learned to spell his name…and he can spell his brother’s name too because he has taken an interest in his letters as well. In technical terms, this is called “environmental print” and includes all of the print we are surrounded by–fast food signs, labels, traffic signs, clothing, magazines, etc.
Often times, we want to force our children to learn letter names by a certain age. We buy flashcards or DVDs claiming to teach our children their letters. We drill our 2-year old over and over for minutes on end. Don’t buy into this…allow your kid to be a kid and take advantage of the “teachable moments” as they come along! Children’s minds are like sponges and are certainly capable of memorizing the alphabet from drilling, but that’s not the most effective method that will produce the best long-term results. Your child will be curious about the print he sees around him and will ask questions. That’s your chance to jump in with a practical application that actually has real meaning and significance to your child.
Don’t misunderstand me and think that I don’t think learning the alphabet is important. It is certainly important…but the method in which we teach them is even more important! Always keep in mind that our ultimate goal is to foster a lifelong learner who loves to read, not a child who has simply memorized without any significance.
5. Incorporate multiple domains of development
Children learn best when multiple senses or areas of development are included. That’s why hands-on learning produces longer retention and more meaningful application. Once your child has shown an interest in letters and you have already begun to utilize natural settings for identifying those letters, begin implementing activities that incorporate as many senses as possible. Keep in mind that learning letter names isn’t nearly as important as learning their sounds!
There are a plethora of ways to incorporate multiple domains of development in regards to letter recognition and early-reading skills. Alphabet crafts allow your child to learn the shape of a letter along with an association of the sound it makes all the while utilizing fine motor skills in the process of cutting, gluing, and creating! Playing games that involve gross motor skills (like tossing beanbags on the appropriate letter) are also wonderful ways to include movement. Of course, every child loves songs and rhymes! Take an inventory of your child’s strengths and areas of interest and target activities to fit them!
6. Classify the Genre
Once your child is around 5 and can recognize the difference between real and make-believe, I would suggest starting to help your child understand various genres of books during your reading time together. This might seem complicated, but it’s really not. There are around 5 different genres of children’s books that I would encourage you to point out to your little one. Of course you can use the term “type” rather than “genre” if that is easier to remember.
- Nonfiction (real stories or facts about animals, places, people, etc)
- Fantasy (make-believe, can’t happen in real life because of magic, talking animals, etc)
- Realistic Fiction (a made-up story, but it could technically happen in real life because the characters and situations arebelievable)
- Alphabet Books
- Song Books
When children classify a book into a certain genre, they have to first summarize the book in their head and recall details. Then they have to use that information to decide which type of genre that particular books fits into. Finally, your child will be recalling details from other books in the same genre, making connections between the two. This simple activity that might take 5-10 seconds of your time after reading a book but it certainly packs a punch of thought and processing in that young brain!
Also, it’s important to note that not all books will fit into one of these genres, especially books that are considered “phonics readers.” I would suggest that you do this exercise only with high-quality children’s literature, not with books that are attempting to get your child to “sound-out” on their own. Most picture books found in children’s libraries will fit into one of these genres.
Remember, our goal is for our children to learn to comprehend what they’re reading…otherwise reading will honestly do them little good. When we encourage our children to think about and process the book we’ve just read together, we are inadvertently modeling what we hope they’ll one day do independently!
7. Word Families
To put it simply, word families are words that rhyme. Teaching children word families is a phonemic awareness activity that helps children see patterns in reading. This is an important skill because it allows children to begin “reading” by grouping sets of letters within a word. The first part of a word is called the onset and the last part of the word is conveniently called the rime. Word families share a similar “rime” as the onset changes.
Once your child recognizes the word “mop”, he’ll then have an advantage to reading all of the other words that have the same rime (top, pop, stop, cop, hop) because only one letter is changing. Plus, recognizing rhyming words is a great language skill in and of itself!
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| Check out this Word Family Game |
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| Find these finger puppets and more at Oriental Trading |
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| Activities like Sight Word Bingo can help make memorizing sight words more fun! |
As you’ve probably noticed, there is no “magic formula” for teaching your child how to read. The points we’ve discussed in previous posts have highlighted simple, effective strategies that are easy to modify for your child. After all, every child learns differently! This series is not to be used as a “checklist” and think that once you’ve covered all the strategies your child will be proficiently reading. Rather, this series provides valuable information to you so that you can guide your child while creating a print-rich, learning environment to foster his/her growth as a reader. Don’t rush and don’t stress! While it’s important to take advantage of the prime-learning time, it’s even more important to let your kid be a kid!
In summary, here are some practical suggestions you can implement every day based on the strategies shared with you in this post and previous posts. Obviously, you can’t implement all of these suggestions with children of all ages, so use your judgement about what is best for your child.
- Read to your child every day!
- Ask your child questions before, during, and after reading.
- Let your child see you reading.
- Look for letters while out and about and in the environment around you.
- When teaching letters and letter sounds, incorporate as many senses as possible.
- Read a variety of books and make a game out of guessing the genre.
- Have fun rhyming!
- Work on letter sounds and manipulating them within words (phonemic awareness)
- Encourage your child to sound out short words (consonant, vowel, consonant).
- Practice memorizing a few sight words each day.
- Most of all, have fun together!
or Kindle Version.
Love this post!! As a former 1st grade teacher now SAHM, you summarized all of that so beautifully! I agree with so much of what you said! Thanks for sharing!
Wow that was so very informative! Thank you!
Thanks for your post…can I ask you for some advice??? My 5 year old knows all the parts of reading, but isn’t reading on her own yet. What I mean is she knows all her letter names and sounds, knows how to sound out words, knows several dozen sight words, knows to read a book from front to back, top to bottom, left to right, etc. But something isn’t clicking. If I had to guess its like she thinks she should have every word memorized and she should just know all the words by sight, and if she doesn’t, then in her mind, she can’t read it. I’m at a loss to help her over this seemingly final hurdle. Sorry to bother you with my personal situation, but your post on reading caught me on a day that I’ve really been stressing over this. Any advice is much appreciated.
Thank you for all you do, I always enjoy reading your posts!
I’ve taught 1st grade for five years. I’ve also taught 2nd and 4th. From my experience reading is not only about word call and decoding. Your child needs to look at the print, slide their finger under what they are reading, get their mouth ready and sound it out. Work with word families and use an easy reader that has the word family in it. When you begin a story reload the vocabulary. You can use magnetic letter, dry erase markers on a table to to sound out main words in the story. For example if you have an easy reader that uses the family -op, then work and teach words that are in the story like mop, top, etc. Then when the child sees the word in print in the context of the story they should be able to recognize the family and use decoding skills to figure out the word. Don’t ever tell them the word b/c then they will get use to having someone read the words to them and they do not use the strategies taught. One last thing, your daughter is only five. Fluent reading normally doesn’t kick in til mid first grade. She just may not be developmentally ready to just pick up a book and read. Keep doing what you are doing and use the suggestions above and you will see progress. Don’t stress. Your daughter is already ahead of most of her kinder peers already.
Sorry I meant to PRE load the vocab to get the child familiar with the wording in the text. oops
I would echo everything that Mrs. T said, including the fact that your five-year old is already achieving many of the skills that we wouldn’t expect until first grade. So don’t stress about it! :) Easier said than done, right?!?!
Also, try to have a balance of you reading to her “just for fun” (perhaps some of her favorite picture books) and then her reading to you (very simple books with few words). The one thing you don’t ever want to do is stifle a child’s love for reading or being read to.
Thank you for such a wonderful post!
The most helpful parts to me were the age guidelines (tho I realize these are fluid/individual)….so may I ask what ages you recommend for the other activities not linked with an age in this post, please?
Thank you!
I would say that no earlier than around 4.5-5 you could start working on just a FEW sight words and maybe word families and “sounding it out” using games. But be sure to make a game out of it as this point so that it won’t turn your child off to learning these important concepts when their in kindergarten, first, and second grades.
Excellent recommendations and guidelines! We’ve found that audio books, ebooks and apps can also be beneficial to building skills and fostering a love of reading.
LOVE your post! You have captured so many important Pre-reading skills. I am passionate about early literacy, and it makes me so sad when I hear parents tell me their baby/ child/ toddler etc is too young for books. May be too young to learn to read, but NEVER too young for books, in my opinion :)
Thanks for the informative summary!
Alexis
What a great post! May I ask for some advice? I am homeschooling my 7 year old daughter. Our curriculum has her learning about 15-20 new vocabulary words a day. She has a bit if trouble. She can read a sepecific word, and then have to read it in a sentence on the next page and completely blanks. What do I do? How do I handle this? She also tends to see a letter and assume what word it is (ex. Haul- she read as “hug”). How do I help her get through this? I have not been able to find any resources on reading for a 1st grader. Also what level she should be at, if that even matters right now. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Hmmm…it sounds to me like maybe you need to look around at some other supplemental reading curriculum out there. When you say that she is learning 20 new “vocabulary” words a day, do you mean that she is supposed to memorize these by sight? If so, I think you might be better off spending at least a little bit more time teaching elements of phonemic awareness and phonics (to where she will have the skills to actually learn to decode a word and not just memorize it). I used a curriculum called “Pathways to Reading” (linked to above in the “phonemic awareness section) in my first grade classroom and it was AMAZING! It taught all of the vowel sounds as well as blends, digraphs, and phonics rules. I would say that with ANY reading curriculum you use, you need a healthy balance that focuses on: reading comprehension, phonemic awareness, phonics, sight words, and vocabulary. Hope that helps!
My son, Tristan, is 4 1/2 and just started to read. I wasn’t trying to teach him to read at all. I’ve been reading to him forever (I was an English major, I love books). He’s known his ABCs since he was at least 2. The only other thing that we did was let him listen to books on CD/tape/MP3. We tried to have the books so he could follow along, but he didn’t always. Usborne books has a great selection of books with CDs – Ted & Friends and Farmyard Tales are his favorite. That helped him identify the words himself (I think). :)
I love this post! As a former first grade teacher, I am thrilled to see that the information you shared comes from experience. ;o) I feel exactly the same way you do on all points. One thing I realized when teaching my first graders is that parents would often push their children to read more challenging books, but never allowed for their child’s comprehension to grow with their reading skills. I also think that a huge developmental challenge for these little guys is confidence. My little 6 year olds struggled with confidence and so it was always hard to explain to the parents that they might be reading what seems to be “easy” books, but they can’t grow as a reader until they have the confidence to take chances and move forward. Great post! Thanks for sharing ;o) Consider it Pinned ;o) lol
I home schooled all my kids and we used Sing, Spell, Read, Write to teach them to read. They have workbooks for pre-school age too. My kids loved it and so did I. Reading came very easy to them and I know it was this curriculum . I would use it all over again.
Sorry, but I feel the need to brag here, so please forgive me. My little one is 4 years old and almost at 4th grade reading level. We are currently reading chapter books and after each chapter she is ask qustions about the chapter and she always gets it right.
SO, now I have a question for the teachers (former and current). We have been working on writing and on coloring and she will only do it when she wants to. How I can I make writing and coloring fun so that she will want to do it more often.
While that is certainly quite an accomplishment that she is reading at the 4th grade level at age 4, I find it a bit ridiculous to brag about. As a mother of a 4 year old, this would annoy me if you were chatting about this at the park. Our kids develop at their own speed -it does not make one better than another.
I know I am responding to an older post; however, I will go ahead since it may benefit someone else. Since it is now spring, take your little ones outside and practice colors, shapes, numbers, letters, writing, etc. using sidewalk chalk. It never fails to entertain and teach at the same time. Sounds like you’re doing a great job with your (now) 5 year old, just don’t be sucked in to pressuring her to handle more than she is ready to handle.
“Grandma Sherbert” this is what I do too! I keep sidewalk chalk in full supply. They can trace, and trace over your letters. They can play ABC hopscotch, while we sing the alphabet. I have 2 kids, one is 4 and the other 5 (and tend to be close in learning capabiliites i.e. learning toghether, helping each other). The outside elements can be used as learning support. Start taking it one step further, and find the ta-ta-tree that starts with T and ta-ta-teeth starts with t too, well so does the number two! Why push them, as a PSYCHOLOGY MAJOR, the only issues pushing a child will create, (such as the 4 year old reading at 4th grade level shame-shame-mommy) the child will develop anxiety issues, confidence issues, relational issues, and the harder the pusher the more you will see Obsessive compulsive disorder, and did I say multiple anxiety realted issues, perfectionist issues, acute shyness can occur as well. All things, that later on, your child-teen-or-adult will be sitting in my office over. CONFUSION over what is normal, what normal even is, and why no matter what you try you cannot acheive that feeling of just being plain ole’ normal, due to the over-expectations your mother had. You then have them for yourself, and suffer miserably!
Go outisde, buy you child some ch-ch-chalk, an some i-i-ice cream and trace some la-la-leaves. Thank you
I came across this article on Pinterest and I love it. I am a kindergarten teacher and a mother of a 2 1/2 year old. I agree so much with what you have written and love how you have compiled it! I was wondering if you would mind if my kindergarten team used what you have written in a packet for parents at kindergarten roundup (we may change parts that are specific to you…curriculum used, etc.). :)
In response to Robyn, here is a little snapshot of how writing looks in my classroom:
Students think of something that has happened to them personally, sketch a picture, and then write about it. They may start by just labeling the picture, or they may be writing several sentences. I sometimes draw lines for each of the words they tell me, so they can see where they should be writing (for example, if they say, “I went to the park.” I would draw __ _______ ____ _____ ________).
You could have her just label things in a coloring book or draw her own pictures and label them, too. You could have her cut out pictures from magazines or newspapers and write what is happening (make it up). She could use stamps and then write words or stories to go with the picture she stamps. Just a few ideas, hope it helps! :)
This article is phenomenal!!!! Thank you for emphasizing the importance for creating a love for reading and not a ‘system’ for learning to read. I’m a 1st grade teacher and mother of 2 preschoolers. Even with all my background knowledge on teaching children to be successful readers, I still find myself stressing out when it comes to my own children by comparing them to others (mainly family members around the same age). I’ve always said there’s so much more to reading than just sounds/words on a page. I look forward to reading more on your blog.
Wonderful post. I forwarded it to my husband. Very well said. I know my mother who teaches 2nd grade would agree.
I love reading. to Olivia joy
Robyn – At four, I would say that the important thing is not to specifically get her to colour or write, but to have general fine motor skills. Do open-ended crafty and arty things which are about having fun and experimenting, not producing a specific outcome like a coloured-in drawing or something that looks like a word. Look at pictures of different styles of art and talk about them with her, encouraging her to observe the detail, and have feelings and impressions about what she likes and doesn’t like. Encourage any fine motor activities that she likes, and don’t stress if writing or colouring is occasional. Writing probably feels very laborious to her if her other language skills are so good. Have you tried offering to help her write a story and just get her to help you with the occasional letter or word, so she feels like she is getting a story out that has the complexity she’s interested in without getting stuck on the work of manually getting down the first few words? I’d perhaps look at incorporating little moments of writing or drawing into daily life, rather than being a task in and of itself. So perhaps you could make labels for things together, or you could play a game of snakes and ladders but introduce a new rule that if she lands on a snake she can go down the snake or draw a snake or write an s (the choice is hers – I’d avoid making it something she has to do as well as going down the snake cause then it will seem like a punishment rather than an opportunity to escape a punishment). Look at ways to make games of it that make it a bit more exciting: eg. (“Let’s see how small we can write your name? Can we get it smaller?” Then take chalk or water and a paintbrush out to the footpath and say, “Now let’s see how BIG we can write your name?”) Decorate soaps, glasses, and t-shirts. Write in the sand at the beach or playground.
What excellent ideas! Something I did with my kids (and now do with my grandchildren) is keep my shopping list within easy reach then ask them if there is anything they need when I go shopping. They write it on the list since I’ve told them I will forget if it is not written down.
Great post! Pinned it ;-)
My daughter got her first book from the hospital at birth ;). I love that hospitals are even promoting reading at birth. Can I just say I hate hate hate sight words. My middle daughter is 9 and sight words were the death of her. Now that she is being taught all of the rules and exceptions through the Wilson program she is doing much better. I get that most kids learn to memorize sight words, but not all of them do. And I truly wish so much stock wasn’t put on memorization in reading. Especially since the amount of sight words or high frequency words they expect children to memorize seems like an awful lot of words that don’t follow the general rules of reading. They can be taught to break down every word. My oldest did fine with sight words though so I know my middle daughter is probably the minority here. However, I have also noticed that my oldest doesn’t have the skills to break down a word she doesn’t know the same way my middle daughter can.
Yes, it certainly is a balance! No greater emphasis should be put on one area over the others (with the exception of reading comprehension). Sight words are typically extremely beneficial for early readers who get frustrated when words don’t follow the “rules”. This is the only area of reading where I feel like memorization is beneficial, in context with all the other reading strategies, of course.
I think the only downside to having children “sound out” (decode) every single word is that it impacts their fluency, which can also have a negative impact on comprehension when it takes 2 minutes to read a single sentence.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I am always amazed to see how different my two children are and I’m sure this will be even more apparent as they get older.
I originally came to your site for the homemade detergent recipe. I had no idea you were a 1st grade teacher. I’m a current one and this is about the best dang advice I’ve ever seen for parents. I’m very tempted to print it and pass it out at Meet the Teacher! Although, by then, it might be a little late!
I am a retired teacher and have read a lot of info over the years on teaching reading. This post is direct and easy to follow outlining how each step builds on the next. Thank you for one of the best explanations I’ve read anywhere on how to teach a child to read.
This is indeed a wonderful post! I have a 14 month old who loves his books. I will be socking this article away for frequent reference. I will note, however, I found the odd reference about how men are not prone to reading very strange indeed. Perhaps I am just unusually fortunate in this respect, but so many of the men in my life adore reading, that it struck me as quite false. I am, in fact, married to a male librarian who loves to read and is beyond thrilled that our little guy has begun grabbing books and bringing them over for him to read. But that assertion aside, an excellent article. Thank you!
There have been lots of studies/articles written on this subject of men not reading as much as women. Here are just a few:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14175229
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/22/women-reading-books-study
Consider yourself blessed to be surrounded by men who love to read! What a great example for your children!
Huh. I had no idea. The hubby will be rather pleased that he is exceptional in yet another facet….
I have a question about having your children see you read…. My husband and I read a lot, but mostly on-line… Kindle, iPad, even our newspaper… will this translate to what you mentioned above? Does our 5 year old understand that we are reading and not “playing” on the computer?
Thanks so much for posting this! Our son just turned 2 and LOVES reading books. He would have us read to him for hours…in fact when his grandma comes over I think she really does read to him for multiple hours through the day. We read board books about trucks and tractors and animals and also read a lot of Dr. Seuss and Bible stories and Curious George. For many months now I have set aside time for him to color with crayons and I would write down the alphabet or short words and go over the letters. We sing the ABC’s a lot and have worked on his saying vowels. He began to recognize the letter “A” in many places at the beginning of the year. Last week we were at the doctors office and there was an alphabet rug and he began naming them through “F”. And he just got an etch a sketch for his birthday, so as I wrote down the first few letters of the alphabet or wrote down his name he began naming them! I was amazed! Not that he does it perfectly but I really didn’t know the capabilities of a 2 year old. I’m really wanting to find more fun ways to encourage him but not push him too hard in it. I look forward to putting your suggestions into practice as he continues to learn!
p.s. I hated to read when I was little (I really didn’t enjoy the public school reading curriculums) but now I love reading. My husband loves to read even more than I do and so do the men at our church, young and old. In fact, one of our friends grew up in a home where his father literally had thousands of history books and had read most of them. Now his son is also an avid reader.
Hey would you mind letting me know which webhost you’re working with? I’ve loaded your blog in 3 different internet browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot quicker then most. Can you recommend a good web hosting provider at a fair price? Thank you, I appreciate it!
Now I am ready to do my breakfast, afterward having my breakfast coming again to
read additional news.
Thanks for these tips. Your suggestions really put things in perspective for me. My 5 year old daughter’s friends seem to be so much better than her at decoding and sounding words out. I realize now that my first mistake was comparing her to other children and, in a panic that she was “behind,” I kept trying to make her sound words out and now I fear I’ve intimidated her when it comes to sounding words out. :(
I’ve read to her since she was a newborn and she loves books. She likes me to read the same books to her over and over. I ask her questions about the story, she looks at the pictures and, without my provocation, she loves to study the pictures and talk at length about the story. I realize now, thanks to your suggestions, that while she is not sounding out and decoding, she is comprehending the actual story, which is more meaningful and productive.
Thanks!
Awesome! I needed this post to show to my parents of my preschool we are learning but maybe not with pencil and paper all day long like my generation grew up with. We use tactile learning for letters in salt trays and we do the letter cut outs and song books etc… everything mentioned. Thank you very much! I am sharing this today.
awesome post…
hope many would take this to their homes
Hi, my daughter is 3 years old (turning 4 in 2 months) she also knows the letter’s names and sounds, and some sight words, and she reads a lot of simple words, but with words that are not very familiar for her, she will only say the sounds of the letters of the word, but can’t actually say the word and sound all the letters together :-( like she would see the word “glass” and would say the sounds of each letter separately not being able to say the word.. Should I just tell her the words so she can try and remember for next time, or should I wait until she gets it by herself?
My little girls who is 5 can read quite a bit for her age I feel, if based on Biff and Kipper books then she is about a level 4 and heading to a level 5.
She can do a lot of word building BUT, i think she feels that because it seems difficult to her then she doesn’t particularly enjoy reading…I have to work really hard with her to get her to focus and to actually pick up a book, otherwise I don’t think she would bother..This worries me greatlybecause as we all know if reading is not something you enjoy then life will be more difficult for her than if she enjoyed it.
She is a very headstrong little girl and i struggle to keep her to that level where she isn’t being pushed but she is still doing some reading so that she doesn’t slip back over the Summer holidays….Help anyone who can help me show her how enjoyable it can be, … we have been taking trips to the library, weplay Roadsign games when out driving, whenever we go anywhere I encourage her to try and work the words out…even if it be the Push and Pull signs on the doors…
We play games at home, she even plays the Cbeebies games n my computer and I try and get her reading the instructions so i’m trying to expose her to words in as many varied ways as possible…I do do the big praise aspect with her when when we learn new words or we read a page etc, and she is read to every day…..Has anyone any more advice please….
Great advice! It is so important that children develop a love of reading, even more so then developing the actual skills!
I love this! I’m a Communicative Disorders major and these methods are not only accurate for teaching how to read but are essential in helping children learn language. I hope parents take note of this (:
I enjoy what you guys are up too. This sort of clever work
and coverage! Keep up the awesome works guys I’ve included you guys to my personal blogroll.
Lovely site!
May I ask if you would be willing to review our reading program. It is called The Reading Lesson. I will be happy to send you a copy. It the best there is. I should know. My mom who is the author taught me to read with it many years ago. And now thousands of people use it. In fact it is number 1 best selling reading book in England, and number two in the US.
Thanks and keep up the wondeful site.
Sincerely,
Nina Levin
Wonderful post! At last someone who really knows what they are talking about and
can as well produce exellent content for us that read it.
Definitely looking forward to your next post.
pls my younger sister has difficulties in spelling no matter what i have tried. Shes 12 yrs old. How can i improve her spellng abiity
You’ve covered all the angles. I too have a passion to teach reading! Excellent!
Love this post. It is incredibly information and helpful. I was a little anxious that I was not doing enough for my 3 year old and 10 month old but seems I am. SO THANKYOU!!!
This is a wonderful post with *so much* great information!! I’m pinning it–thanks for sharing!!
Great article! It is SO important to keep our kids focused! I started this business 5 years ago and it has been so amazing impacting so many families. My favorite client was a 3 year old boy, Mikey, who had trouble BEGINNING to read. 5 years later, he STILL loves to read! He can’t put the books down! His confidence was the most amazing impact on his family. I gotta say, I love my job!
Just check it out!
http://www.seeicanread.com/
Thanks!
Hi, Very Good post.. Thank you for sharing this post.
I love this! I am a preschool teacher who has been stressing a little! My 4.5 year old son has been challenging me… he is clearly showing signs that he is ready to read and I have no idea where to start! You have no idea how happy I am to have come across your blog about reading… the fact that its not memorize ABC’s, memorize sounds, etc but rather comes from a more natural learning has made me so happy! I have come across so many teachers that are no longer worried about letting children learn through their interests and it has turned into a very formal rote learning which makes me cringe. So YAY!!! Thank you thank you thank you! Tomorrow my son and I have a game planned where he is going to think of a word, which we will sound and and decide what letters are in it… and I will write out words that he will try and sound out to read! We are both very excited!
Hi. As you will see once reading my post, I’m feeling awfully desperate & unable to sleep over issues my kindergartner is having in school. He’s an “older” kindergartner (6.5 y.o.). I have done all the things in your list. He loves me to read to him, and I do often up to an hour 1 day (books of HIS choice). Once he joined kindergarten, I started hearing that the work is too hard, that he hates reading, he can’t read, won’t be able to for a long time, he’s a terrible reader, etc. Early on…probably 3 weeks into the year, they had a 20 sight words screening/test & then placed all the students in reading groups. He seemed upset by the requirements. We were told for homework, to have him scan his finger across the sentences of these black & white scholastic books…example, “I like pizza, I like corn, I like apples, What do you like?” He would get so upset and clearly extremely frustrated by being asked to do this process. The teacher was willing to remove him from the reading groups which seemed to reduce his anxiety some. The class, together, recites out loud the 20+/month sight words they are expected to learn via smartboard. He knows none of them. From my vantage point, this seems to be difficult for him. The teacher says he’s doing “great”. He still occasionally says negative things about his reading ability / confidence. This concerns me greatly & shared this w/ teacher. When the other kids rotate b/w free play time & their reading groups, he’s allowed to do free play but he spends alot of that time @ the computer car games (school considers apart of the free play curriculum). It’s now January & now they will begin journal writing & small sentence writing. I’m certain this will be something he finds frustrating. On one hand, I’m trying to determine whether it’s healthy for him to continue being in this environment or not. Have you ever seen kids move from 1 environment to another mid-year & do well? I’m considering just pulling him out to homeschool w/ more tactile, multisensory methods of learning for the remainder of the year but just not sure what is best. There is more pencil/paper/worksheets as compared tactile, multi-sensory methods of instruction and that is not how he learns best. He often says the paperwork is “too hard”. Last week he said he was scared to go bc of this. I’m very concerned about his confidence; wondering what the environmental impact is of him not being there is )ex:(a number of them are reading accelerated readers). The teacher feels he does not notice this but I don’t get this sense about how he sees himself. He’s very intuitive. I’m not sure what to do but just want to do what is best for my child. For many months now, since October, I have been observing other schools classrooms, visiting them. Most expect these kids to read by spring. And most seem to be. Mine does not though I have done all the things you have posted. Given all that I have said, do you have any recommendations? I believe in respecting where kids are developmentally & it seems to me he simply is not in a place to perform at this level though the teacher seems to think he is doing great.
My daughter is also the same. I have been having anxiety for my child not being able to catch on. My daughter turned 6 in December. She can only recognize a few letters in her name. My oldest daughter, who is 8, is a great reader, and my youngest daughter, 3 1/2, can also recognize most of the alphabet and is starting to sound out small words. We read to them every day. I also feel desperate to help my child as I do not know how I can help her. I have been giving her alphabet worksheets and doing the best I can at home.
Very informative post and helpful. i like almost everything on it. thanks for the great work.
Jane.
I love your post. As a teacher, I really like postings that can help me to be a better teacher. I learnt a lot from your postings.
i am quite thankful for the info i found on here. its very helpful!
I really admired your post…however I was thinking if you can help me with my teaching before the coming start…
Eager to hear from you
As a teacher and miter of two girls (2 and 5) I was thrilled to stumble on to this article! I love seeing this advice being shared with parents. Learning to read is so much more fun for everyone when the child is interested and when parents don’t feel thy need to push. So important for kids to be kids! Thank you.
Thank you! Amazing article. I will try some of your tips definitely.
Great information. Speaking from personal experience, homeschooling is definitely the way to go, better than social schooling in my experience, but the parents do play a major role on how well educated the child will be. I have found a very informative FREE pdf file that coached me every step of the way on how to home school my children. If anyone is interested..it’s free
We found a unique way to get our kids to stop watching tv. Audio books. They’re far more engaging than television. We downloaded a bunch for free at this site. http://www.twirlygirlshop.com/stories-for-kids
i love and find your post as the foundation and the grass-root for reading which we are lacking as AFRICAN’S God bless you for giving us this lovely, educative, and beneficial ideas thank you.
There is a lot of information out there for teaching children to read. This post was very informative as well. I like the decoding and using multiple aspects. Another great resource for teaching reading: http://teachyourchildtoread.blogspot.com/
What about bilingual kids. My 5 year old daughter can read and write in Japanese some- sounding out words etc. Not Kanji yet of course but she cant do anything in English. I am afraid to push her. She only recognizes and writes a few letters and knows some of the sounds. Where should I start?
We live in Japan and I have noticed she is starting to struggle more with English. I only speak English with her and when she was really little used to read to her and do lots of things with English puzzles and blocks and things. Soon she will start learning Kanji and I am afraid because it is so demanding English will get lost.
My son is 3 and has 2 full shelves of books. Every time we go to a store he always wants to get another one! He knows his alphabet and can recognize about 1/3 of the letters. I really have been wanting to teach him more but I don’t want to push him and have him lose interest. Anytime he sees words he will say look mom, ABCs! He doesn’t know what it says or what the letters are but he gets very excited to see them! Do you have any tips on how to get them to recognize the letters? We tell him what the letters are and what they say when he asks but is there a more structured approach that works better for a 3 year old? I can tell he really wants to learn, I’m just not sure how to teach him! lol
How useful is it to use a tool say a ruler or any piece of paper as a guide to show which line of sentences you are currently reading? Or maybe just point to the words and glide along as you read through the words?
I just found your post! Thank you for the info! I was looking because my daughters teachers wanted to keep her back in Kindergarten because she is not reading yet, and they wanted us to “do a lot of catch up work to get ready for 1st grade”. She turned 6 at the end of January. You say that they are not expected to be reading until mid-1st grade so why are our teachers so persistent that she should already be reading? (They kept my son back for the same reason, I was even lied to by the Special Education Class Teacher on what type of books, how many words, length of the books they should be reading in first grade to help me make up my mind.) She loves to be read to, she is also the youngest and the older 2 have always done everything for her (ie talk, answer, cleaned up, carried her, etc), even when I tell them not too. I think this is why she won’t read for herself.
Great story! I’m also seeing a lot about how having kids read to dogs can help build their confidence and ultimately make them better readers. Programs like this one are so cool! http://www.ilovedogs.com/2013/05/passionate-pet-parents-improving-childhood-literacy/
Our golden retriever (who died a few months ago) was a therapy dog. She would go to school with me once a week back when I was teaching first grade and the kids could read to her. They LOVED it! :)
What a wonderful opportunity! My son started reading to the dogs at our local library when he was 4 and it really boosted his confidence! I did find it funny that one of the dogs he read to was deaf, but of course the kids didn’t know that and really believed he was listening to the story :)
Thanks for a superb guide on teaching one’s child to read. My son loves being read to and is good at comprehending story-lines. He started school four months ago but is not progressing as fast as I’d like with learning to read. He is behind 2/3ds of his peers. Reading all the posts has made me realize what I already know and that is I should just relax about it and not pressurize him. We’ve been playing a word family card game recently and he is enjoying that.
Thank you for sharing this! My son will be entering K soon, and we have been working with him on reading skills, but have not really known how to go about it. This is awesome! I find it weird that most of these things I have never even thought of before, but jumped right to “These letters make this word” lol….I still have so much to learn.
MY DAUGHTER IS 6 DOING GRADE 1 SHE IS VERY GOOD WITH NUMBERS BUT IS TO SHY TO READ AND IDENTFY LETTERS. SHE IS ALSO STRUGGLING WITH ALPHABETS DIFFERANTIATION MOTER ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO ARE FAMILIAR SAID.
Thank you for this informative and encouraging post. As my husband and I are both avid readers, we naturally did all of these steps with our oldest child and he learned to read before he was 4 years old. We didn’t do videos or flash cards, just a natural progression and I agree it is a wonderful approach. He just finished kindergarten and reads 4th grade level books with great comprehension. It is such a joy to see him love reading, but I have to keep reminding him to put his books down while walking in parking lots!!
I also like that you encourage parents not to force reading by a certain age. I’m finding that my next 2 children do not have quite the same interest/ability as he did so early, so we are employing the same steps and taking it at their own paces and working with their individual strengths.
Thanks again. Enjoyed your writing!
I have a 9-year old I teach private extra lessons after school. He is not a native English speaker; I am in Nigeria. His ability to pronounce words is quite poor, and I want to teach him how to read, but I don’t know the most effective technique to us. Please help me. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your article. I was one of those parents who wanted their child to be reading by age 2 and other unrealistic expectations like that. I bought certain programs promising my baby would be able to read, and she didn’t! I do not push her anymore and just spend a lot of time reading with her. Thank you for your article and I will definitely use some of your suggestions just to keep up with her love of reading.