Where to Begin Teaching Your Child to Read
Teach, Read, Succeed: Ask the Expert
Whether your child is too young for school, or is pre-school age or attends school but needs more support or more challenge or you’re homeschooling or will homeschool in the future and you want to get a head start on their education. Whichever one of these describes you, I have 4 tips for where to get started teaching your child to read.
4 Components to Start With
If you’ve been reading aloud to your child, you’ve been teaching them. Whether you’re reading a novel that was interesting to you, or a recipe, or a picture book, it all counts and it helps your child prepare for later reading success.
Here are 4 things your child needs to start learning how to read:
Phonological Awareness - which is a big way of saying recognizing and manipulating sounds in words and sentences. Here are a few activities to get started:
Identify rhyming words and practice with rhymes
Practice breaking words into sounds ‘cat’ c-a-t (start with the word and start with sounds so c-a-t “cat”
Ask what the first sound in words is (and as your child learns, begin asking what the middle or vowel sound is, and what the ending sound is)
Letter knowledge - the letter names and sounds
Research shows that learning letter names and sounds at the same time has the biggest impact and helps children to learn and recall both.
Focus on a few letters at a time, starting with common letters, and begin with focusing on the short vowel sounds (s, a, t, p). Once your child knows two or three sounds, begin practicing blending them together (s-a-t), (p-a-t).
Use magnetic letters, alphabet cards, or index cards with the letters written on them to help your child begin to identify the names and sounds.
Look for letters in your environment, including street signs, labels and signs at the grocery store, grocery lists, and more! Anywhere there are letters, you can practice looking for and identifying them.
Print awareness - understanding that we read left to right, top to bottom, from the front of the book to the back; and knowledge that writing has meaning
Start with simple decodable books, you can find some of my favorites here.
Practice ‘tricky’ words by teaching the part of the word that is tricky. These words “like, was, is, look” are words you might have grown up calling ‘sight words’. Sight words have now been defined as words that can be read automatically, without being sounded out; therefore, they could be any word. To clarify the distinction between words that have parts that do not follow the rules your child has learned, we will refer to words with parts that need to be explicitly taught as tricky words.
You can teach tricky words by teaching your child about heart words. You can learn about an activity called ‘Heart Word Magic’ from Really Great Reading here. (not an affiliate, just a great way to help children learn these words).
Love of reading and Confidence! - You probably know by now that I am always talking about children’s confidence playing an incredibly important role in learning how to read, and building a love of reading is critical to helping children become life long learners. A couple of easy ways to foster a love of reading and building your child’s confidence include reading together, and letting your child choose the books that you read.
Tips for Success
Keep lessons/sessions short! Around 10-15 minutes. It can help to follow your child’s lead, if they’re not interested at the moment, consider trying again later.
Make learning fun and playful, your energy is contagious, and your child will pick up on your excitement.
Celebrate small victories!
Be patient and consistent
Read together every day
When your child gets frustrated, take a break and try again later with a different activity. Remember, every child learns at their own pace. Keep up the great work, you’re making a difference for your child.
If you’re getting started teaching your child how to read, you can subscribe and receive my podcast mini series “Literacy in The Moment”, it’s three short episodes about incorporating more literacy building activities in your day, from learning letters to story time, and beginning writing. You can get it here.
Brittany is a teacher and reading specialist, fueled by her passions in teaching and supporting families. She supports families whether from birth through childhood.
Contact Courageous Moments to learn how she can help you and your child on your child’s reading journey.