I can teach my child to read

How To Teach A Child to Read In 10 Easy Steps

Teaching your child to read can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life!  Here we share 10 tips on how to teach a child to read, from pre-readers all the way to school-age children!

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. Learning to read is a process and the information below is simply for you to implement when you feel your child is ready.

Once your child is ready to begin reading, you will need to find a systematic and explicit program that teaches phonemic awareness and phonics.  This is essential. Learning to read is like breaking a cipher code (and contrary to what the title of this post suggests, it is NOT easy).  Every child must learn the code and it makes the most sense to teach this explicitly rather than depending on kids figuring it out on their own.   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 for your pre-reader.  If your child is school-aged and you are looking for a curriculum on how to teach a child to read, I highly recommend Pathways to Reading Homeschool.

How To Teach a Child To Read

1. Read Aloud  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 ongoing reading time building 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.

How much you read to your child is completely up to you and your family, but I suggest you aim to read at least 3-4 books a day, even while your child is very young. As she gets a little older and can sit for longer stretches of time, make it a family goal to read together for at least 20-minutes each day.

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

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 the story is going to be about (predicting). While reading, ask him what he thinks is going to happen in the story 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!

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!

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.

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. Focus on Phonemic Awareness and Phonics

“Phonemes” are the smallest sounds in the English language (go here for a complete list of phonemes). These sounds are made up of consonants, short vowels, long vowels, and digraphs. “Phonemic Awareness” consists of learning those sounds and how to manipulate them within a word. Digraphs are unique sounds comprised of individual letters like /th/, /sh/, /ch/, etc.

“Phonics” includes learning how to spell those sounds and the various rules that the English language follows. Learning the rules of phonics is an essential tool that helps a child learn to decode and spell. I used the Pathways To Reading program in the classroom as my phonemic awareness and phonics program and loved it! It made learning all of the tricky spellings so much fun!  Pathways now has a homeschool version, which is amazing!

Decoding is often referred to as “sounding it out.”  Once your child knows the sounds each letter makes (which is taught in real, meaningful situations), she is ready to begin putting words together.  Decoding is a process that requires strong phonemic awareness skills and gives way to orthographic mapping, the process by which words are stored as “sight words” in long-term memory.

As children decode words with more frequency, they will become more proficient at automatically identifying that word. Researchers say it can take between 1-4 exposures of decoding before a word is transferred to long-term memory for automatic retrieval.  Sometimes this task is tedious, and can’t be short-changed, so it’s important to find creative ways to make it fun. When I taught first grade, I used to buy little finger puppets that my students could use to point to the letters as they were decoding. This was a huge hit and made this process so much fun!

10. Use a reading program with explicit, systematic instruction once he/she is in kindergarten and beyond

Most of the skills up to this point are what I would consider “pre-reader” skills that we, as parents, can work on during our child’s earliest years to make the process of learning to read much easier for our children.  Once your child reaches school-age, be sure that you are using a program rooted in the science of reading, with explicit and systematic instruction in both phonemic awareness and phonics.  If your child is headed to school, ask to look over the curriculum to ensure it is strong in these areas specifically.  Some children will naturally learn the phonetic code more easily than others, as Nancy Young’s Reading Ladder suggests, but ALL children benefit from early code-based instruction.

There is no better foundational reading program, in my opinion, than Pathways to Reading.  The original curriculum has been used in classrooms and clinical settings for the last 20 years.  The program has been involved in numerous research studies, showing statistically significant results.  Pathways to Reading Homeschool now offers their groundbreaking curriculum for home educators, starting with Basic Foundational Reading (which is the equivalent of kindergarten-age instruction).  All 5 areas of reading instruction, as identified by the National Reading Panel, are incorporated:  Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Fluency, and Reading Comprehension.  This is such an incredible resource for families and I can’t recommend it highly enough!

Learning To Read is a Journey

In summary, here are some practical suggestions you can implement every day based on the learning to read strategies shared with you in this post. Obviously, you can’t implement all of these suggestions with children of all ages, so use your judgement about what is the best way to teach a child to read.

• 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
• Play these oral phonemic awareness games together (no materials required)
• Encourage your child to sound out short words (consonant, vowel, consonant).
• Most of all, have fun together!

Teaching children to read isn’t easy. How do kids actually learn to read?

Teaching kids to read isn’t easy; educators often feel strongly about what they think is the “right” way to teach this essential skill. Though teachers’ approaches may differ, the research is pretty clear on how best to help kids learn to read. Here’s what parents should look for in their children’s classroom.

How do kids actually learn how to read?

Research shows kids learn to read when they are able to identify letters or combinations of letters and connect those letters to sounds. There’s more to it, of course, like attaching meaning to words and phrases, but phonemic awareness (understanding sounds in spoken words) and an understanding of phonics (knowing that letters in print correspond to sounds) are the most basic first steps to becoming a reader.

If children can’t master phonics, they are more likely to struggle to read. That’s why researchers say explicit, systematic instruction in phonics is important: Teachers must lead students step by step through a specific sequence of letters and sounds. Kids who learn how to decode words can then apply that skill to more challenging words and ultimately read with fluency. Some kids may not need much help with phonics, especially as they get older, but experts say phonics instruction can be essential for young children and struggling readers “We don’t know how much phonics each kid needs,” said Anders Rasmussen, principal of Wood Road Elementary School in Ballston Spa, New York, who recently led the transformation of his schools’ reading program to a research-based, structured approach. “But we know no kid is hurt by getting too much of it.”

How should your child’s school teach reading?

Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an expert on reading instruction, said phonics are important in kindergarten through second grade and phonemic awareness should be explicitly taught in kindergarten and first grade. This view has been underscored by experts in recent years as the debate over reading instruction has intensified. But teaching kids how to read should include more than phonics, said Shanahan. They should also be exposed to oral reading, reading comprehension and writing.

The wars over how to teach reading are back. Here’s the four things you need to know.

Wiley Blevins, an author and expert on phonics, said a good test parents can use to determine whether a child is receiving research-based reading instruction is to ask their child’s teacher how reading is taught. “They should be able to tell you something more than ‘by reading lots of books’ and ‘developing a love of reading.’ ” Blevins said. Along with time dedicated to teaching phonics, Blevins said children should participate in read-alouds with their teacher to build vocabulary and content knowledge. “These read-alouds must involve interactive conversations to engage students in thinking about the content and using the vocabulary,” he said. “Too often, when time is limited, the daily read-alouds are the first thing left out of the reading time. We undervalue its impact on reading growth and must change that.”

Rasmussen’s school uses a structured approach: Children receive lessons in phonemic awareness, phonics, pre-writing and writing, vocabulary and repeated readings. Research shows this type of “systematic and intensive” approach in several aspects of literacy can turn children who struggle to read into average or above-average readers.

What should schools avoid when teaching reading?

Educators and experts say kids should be encouraged to sound out words, instead of guessing. “We really want to make sure that no kid is guessing,” Rasmussen said. “You really want … your own kid sounding out words and blending words from the earliest level on.” That means children are not told to guess an unfamiliar word by looking at a picture in the book, for example. As children encounter more challenging texts in later grades, avoiding reliance on visual cues also supports fluent reading. “When they get to ninth grade and they have to read “Of Mice and Men,” there are no picture cues,” Rasmussen said.

Related: Teacher Voice: We need phonics, along with other supports, for reading

Blevins and Shanahan caution against organizing books by different reading levels and keeping students at one level until they read with enough fluency to move up to the next level. Although many people may think keeping students at one level will help prevent them from getting frustrated and discouraged by difficult texts, research shows that students actually learn more when they are challenged by reading materials.

Blevins said reliance on “leveled books” can contribute to “a bad habit in readers.” Because students can’t sound out many of the words, they rely on memorizing repeated words and sentence patterns, or on using picture clues to guess words. Rasmussen said making kids stick with one reading level — and, especially, consistently giving some kids texts that are below grade level, rather than giving them supports to bring them to grade level — can also lead to larger gaps in reading ability.

How do I know if a reading curriculum is effective?

Some reading curricula cover more aspects of literacy than others. While almost all programs have some research-based components, the structure of a program can make a big difference, said Rasmussen. Watching children read is the best way to tell if they are receiving proper instruction — explicit, systematic instruction in phonics to establish a foundation for reading, coupled with the use of grade-level texts, offered to all kids.

Parents who are curious about what’s included in the curriculum in their child’s classroom can find sources online, like a chart included in an article by Readingrockets.org which summarizes the various aspects of literacy, including phonics, writing and comprehension strategies, in some of the most popular reading curricula.

Blevins also suggested some questions parents can ask their child’s teacher:

• What is your phonics scope and sequence?

“If research-based, the curriculum must have a clearly defined phonics scope and sequence that serves as the spine of the instruction.” Blevins said.

• Do you have decodable readers (short books with words composed of the letters and sounds students are learning) to practice phonics?

“If no decodable or phonics readers are used, students are unlikely to get the amount of practice and application to get to mastery so they can then transfer these skills to all reading and writing experiences,” Blevins said. “If teachers say they are using leveled books, ask how many words can students sound out based on the phonics skills (teachers) have taught … Can these words be fully sounded out based on the phonics skills you taught or are children only using pieces of the word? They should be fully sounding out the words — not using just the first or first and last letters and guessing at the rest.”

• What are you doing to build students’ vocabulary and background knowledge? How frequent is this instruction? How much time is spent each day doing this?

“It should be a lot,” Blevins said, “and much of it happens during read-alouds, especially informational texts, and science and social studies lessons.”

• Is the research used to support your reading curriculum just about the actual materials, or does it draw from a larger body of research on how children learn to read? How does it connect to the science of reading?

Teachers should be able to answer these questions, said Blevins.

What should I do if my child isn’t progressing in reading?

When a child isn’t progressing, Blevins said, the key is to find out why. “Is it a learning challenge or is your child a curriculum casualty? This is a tough one.” Blevins suggested that parents of kindergarteners and first graders ask their child’s school to test the child’s phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency.

Parents of older children should ask for a test of vocabulary. “These tests will locate some underlying issues as to why your child is struggling reading and understanding what they read,” Blevins said. “Once underlying issues are found, they can be systematically addressed.”

“We don’t know how much phonics each kid needs. But we know no kid is hurt by getting too much of it.”

Anders Rasmussen, principal of Wood Road Elementary School in Ballston Spa, New York

Rasmussen recommended parents work with their school if they are concerned about their children’s progress. By sitting and reading with their children, parents can see the kind of literacy instruction the kids are receiving. If children are trying to guess based on pictures, parents can talk to teachers about increasing phonics instruction.

“Teachers aren’t there doing necessarily bad things or disadvantaging kids purposefully or willfully,” Rasmussen said. “You have many great reading teachers using some effective strategies and some ineffective strategies.”

What can parents do at home to help their children learn to read?

Parents want to help their kids learn how to read but don’t want to push them to the point where they hate reading. “Parents at home can fall into the trap of thinking this is about drilling their kid,” said Cindy Jiban, a former educator and current principal academic lead at NWEA, a research-based non-profit focused on assessments and professional learning opportunities. “This is unfortunate,” Jiban said. “It sets up a parent-child interaction that makes it, ‘Ugh, there’s this thing that’s not fun. ’” Instead, Jiban advises making decoding playful. Here are some ideas:

• Challenge kids to find everything in the house that starts with a specific sound.
• Stretch out one word in a sentence. Ask your child to “pass the salt” but say the individual sounds in the word “salt” instead of the word itself.
• Ask your child to figure out what every family member’s name would be if it started with a “b” sound.
• Sing that annoying “Banana fana fo fanna song.” Jiban said that kind of playful activity can actually help a kid think about the sounds that correspond with letters even if they’re not looking at a letter right in front of them.
• Read your child’s favorite book over and over again. For books that children know well, Jiban suggests that children use their finger to follow along as each word is read. Parents can do the same, or come up with another strategy to help kids follow which words they’re reading on a page.

Giving a child diverse experiences that seem to have nothing to do with reading can also help a child’s reading ability. By having a variety of experiences, Rasmussen said, children will be able to apply their own knowledge to better comprehend texts about various topics.

This story about teaching children to read was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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How to teach a child to read

Anna Kondrashova

taught her son to read

Author profile

At 3. 5 years old, my son was presented with a plate with letters, and he began to ask about them. Then I bought him a primer.

I was worried that it was too early to read, but I did not find a single sensible article about when exactly it would be time. I myself learned to read at the age of four, but it was hard for me: I didn’t like the black-and-white primer, and instead of reading I wanted to go play.

So I decided to just try to read with my son, and if it didn't work out, I would return to the primer later.

At that time, it really didn’t work out to teach my son to read: we went through only 4-5 letters, but he still didn’t understand how to combine them into syllables. After several attempts, we gave up reading.

When my son was four, I took out the primer again. Progress was felt: the syllables grew together, the son learned more letters, but now he began to confuse them. And during classes, he constantly said that he was bored. I realized that it is still too early.

As a result, at 4.5 years old, the son himself found a primer and said that now he will definitely learn to read. And so it happened. I’ll tell you what else I used for training, what I understood about it and what difficulties we encountered.

What primer we used

I'm not a teacher and had no idea what it takes to learn to read. Friends with older children advised educational cartoons and apps, but I didn't want my son to sit in front of the screen once again. There were too many games and educational kits in the stores, and I did not understand which were good and which were not. So I decided to teach my son the old fashioned way - the primer, and not spend money on the rest.

Three friends at once recommended Nadezhda Zhukova's primer to me. I found reviews about it on the "Labyrinth" and looked at the photos of the pages there. On the cover it was written that the primer was compiled according to the logopedic method. I didn't know what that meant, but I decided it was probably good.

/guide/books-for-children/

How to choose the perfect book for your child

It was more important for me that the primer had beautiful, bright, and sometimes funny illustrations. After all, it was the black-and-white primer that repelled me in childhood. I also noticed that Zhukova's texts are much more interesting than those that I remembered from the primer of my childhood. Mostly, these were funny stories about animals and even riddles, which my son loves very much.

In general, I did not hesitate for a long time, but ordered this particular primer. It was cheapest of all at Wildberry - I gave 312 R.

Later I was not disappointed in this primer. As an editor, the only thing that annoyed me was dots at the end of headings: according to the rules, they should not be.

I also didn't like the fact that rare names like Goga, Lusha and Mura came across in the primer. In 30 years of my life, I have not met a single person who would be called that. And the son constantly asked: “Is this a girl or a boy?”

And one day I was put into a stupor by his question: “Why is it written ‘sons’ here? That's right, "sons." But I got off with an explanation that a very, very long time ago people used to say that.

Otherwise, I consider Zhukova's primer just excellent.

How the primer was arranged

I still don't understand what exactly was the speech therapy method of the primer, but it was not like the usual alphabet, in which the letters follow the alphabet.

The very first were the vowels A, U and O and the consonants M, C and X. Probably, according to the author, they are most often found in speech and most children pronounce them without problems.

Iotated vowels E‎, Yu and Ya came closer to the end. I think because in different cases they are read differently, and it is not easy for a child to learn this. There were also b and b at the end, and the rest of the letters were in the middle of the book.

This learning system suited my son. Unlike the first attempts, this time he quickly memorized all the letters and easily combined them into syllables. Difficulties were only with the ill-fated letter Y, and I don't understand why. And when he finally learned it, he confused it with P several times. Probably, the fact is that the Y part looks like an inverted P.

My son did not immediately remember what the letters b and b do, and I explained it crumpled. It was also difficult for me to explain to him why in some cases I am [ya], and in others - [a] and softens the previous sound. To do this, I would have to tell what vowels and consonants are, but I was not sure that a four-year-old child needed this. Fortunately, in the end, he understood everything intuitively and now reads correctly.

How we studied

My son asked me to read the primer only a few times. Usually I offered myself, but he almost never refused. In general, his attitude to classes could be described as "I don't mind." It is clear that it was more pleasant for a four-year-old child to play and watch cartoons, but reading did not cause disgust either - this is what I used.

We tried to read every weekday, right after kindergarten. But I didn’t force my son to study if he didn’t want to or was sick, and I didn’t read with him when I wasn’t in the mood myself. We had nowhere to hurry, and sitting down to a lesson on nerves would be harmful to both me and him. Somehow we had a break for three whole weeks, and then we calmly returned to the primer.

/list/kids-dev-apps/

Read, Count and Explore Space: 14 Educational Apps for Kids

We read each time until our son said he was tired. Usually his strength was enough for a page, for about 10 minutes, and then we played. I think that such lessons are quite enough for a four-year-old child.

I realized that having a weekend is a must: they are needed not only for relaxation, but also to better assimilate knowledge.

For example, the son for some reason could not remember the letter Y‎ for a long time, and when it came across in a word, he fell silent. This went on for several days - neither games nor repeated reading of the pages in the primer helped. But then the weekend came, and we didn't study. And on Monday they left the kindergarten, and the son suddenly read on the gate: "Exit".

Since then, if something didn't work out, I took breaks in training even in the middle of the week. These days, the son did not remember about the primer, but then he sat down at it without any problems - and for some reason everything went like clockwork.

What additional materials did we use

After rummaging through toys, I found a lot of auxiliary materials at home - relatives gave them to my son almost from birth. Look for it - you probably have many similar ones. Here's what worked for us.

Magnetic lettering easel. When we went through a new letter in the primer, I gave my son its magnetic figurine as a reward. So he enthusiastically collected a collection of them.

Growing easel with magnetic letters - 2340 R

When there were about ten letters passed, we made up new words and small addresses to each other from them. I think it was useful for learning, and with the help of the alphabet, the son memorized letters faster.

The only thing I didn't like about our set was that initially the letters were separate from the magnets. And the latter had to be hammered in.

at home. Cubes with the letters could be used for games, just like the magnetic alphabet. I also suggested that my son make words out of them - my imagination was not enough for more. But he was more interested in playing with the alphabet, so we ended up not using cubes. Now I gave them to my friends.

Education cards. We had a set where each card had objects and animals with one letter. My son had fun looking for them and naming them. And we competed to see who could find the most.

Set of cards "Letters" — 180 R

"Letterfoot" from the IQ series is an educational notebook with interesting tasks related to letters. They need to be looked for in pictures, colored and made up of disparate halves. My son loves developing notebooks very much, so he also completed these tasks with pleasure. And at the same time, he remembered letters better.

Manual "Letterfoot" - 83 Р

"Shaggy alphabet" by Boris Zakhoder - a cycle of poems about animals for each letter of the alphabet. When we passed the new one, I read the corresponding poems to my son. And before that, he looked for the animal in the picture for the desired letter - like on cards. I think it made the learning process more fun and varied.

"Poems and Tales" by Boris Zakhoder - 442 Р

What rules did I follow

I didn’t know how to teach a child to read correctly, but I didn’t want to look for some videos or articles: this or that method might not suit my son. Therefore, I was guided only by recommendations from the primer, common sense and my observations.

As a result, we completed the primer in four months, including weekends and breaks, and my son easily mastered reading skills. Here are the rules that helped us with this.

Learn transcription, not letter names. For example, say that L is [l] and not [el]. And Sh is [w], not [sha]. I understood this even before I read the recommendations for parents in the primer.

The fact is that many of my friends first learned the alphabet with their children, and then took up the primer. This was also influenced by musical toys, which have built-in songs with the alphabet. As a result, the children read the word "mom" as ‎[uh-uh]‎ and did not understand how to combine letters into syllables. It was difficult to retrain them.

I did not repeat this mistake. As a result, my child still does not know the alphabet, but he can read. I don’t understand why he needs to know him at all and what is useful in this. But if necessary, he will learn it at school without any problems.

Take your time. I have already mentioned that we threw the primer twice before we finally overcame it. I believe that the child's brain must mature to read, otherwise the process will be painful. I waited until my son was completely ready to read, and it was easy for him. He felt that he was succeeding, and constantly experienced situations of success.

Do not prompt. Sometimes the son confused letters or did not read, but thought out the endings of words. Each time I struggled with the temptation to immediately show where the mistake was, and patiently waited for my son to finish the whole word. After that, he himself often realized that he had incorrectly placed the stress or mixed up the letter. And if not, I gently asked to reread the word again, only more carefully. As a result, over time, the errors became smaller.

Praise and encourage. Every time after the class, I told my son that it was pleasant and interesting for me to study with him. That he is a great fellow and quickly remembers everything. And what didn’t work out today will surely work out later. He loves praise, so he left in a good mood.

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At first, after each lesson, I gave him something small: a sticker or a treat. But by the middle of the primer she stopped, so that her son would get used to reading not for the sake of gifts. And he didn't even remember them.

Only when we were finishing the primer did I promise him a mini-holiday: I bought a building kit that he had wanted for a long time, a coloring book and some treats. So we celebrated farewell to the primer.

Read all around. When we went through all the letters, on walks and on the way to kindergarten, my son read all the signs, and in supermarkets - the names of the products that we bought.

And when we were finishing the primer, our son was presented with a quiz game. He wanted to read the questions on the cards himself: they were just short, simple and with familiar words. So he additionally practiced reading.

Quiz game "Nature" - 215 R

What were the difficulties

Speech therapy. My son does not pronounce four sounds, and I decided to consult with the teachers whether it is worth taking them in the primer. They had not yet been engaged in reading, but I was still interested in the opinion of teachers. They advised me to skip complex letters, but I flipped through the primer and realized that this was impossible: they would constantly appear further in words. I don’t know if I did the right thing, but I didn’t miss anything. Now the son reads these letters as incorrectly as he speaks.

We recently hired a speech therapist for him, and she said that nothing terrible had happened. According to her, when the sounds get into speech, the son will begin to pronounce them correctly while reading. And so it happened.

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The breakdown into syllables interfered. In the alphabet, they were separated by a hyphen, and at first this helped my son. But by the end of the primer, the texts became longer, and the breakdown increased them even more. Even to me, they seemed like a terrible mess of syllables, and the child often said that he could not read it.

Then I used two tricks: I suggested reading at least the title of the text or looking at the picture. One always worked. For example, one of the texts was called "Teapot-Chief" - the son laughed and immediately wanted to know why he was the boss. He was also interested in the title “Pig Fefela”: the son decided that there would be something funny in the text. Unfortunately, the text turned out to be instructive: it said that you can’t pick flowers and litter - only pigs do that. But my son still read it to the end.

If the headlines didn't help, I asked questions to the pictures next to the texts. For example: “Why do you think the hedgehog laughs and the cat cries with needles in its paw? Why is there a huge bump on the cat’s forehead in the other picture?” This also motivated my son to read.

At the same time, I noticed that he reads signs on the street and quiz tasks faster, although the words are not broken down there. And I realized that she was bothering him. Then I briefly told him about five or six letters that we did not have time to go through, bought a book to read without breakdown and wanted to completely abandon the primer. But the son mixed up the letters that we didn't go through well and didn't understand the meaning of the text. So the book had to be put aside and tormented by the primer to the end.

The son was missing a line. When the son finished reading the line and moved on to the next one, he could accidentally put his finger lower than necessary. So he skipped one or two lines and did not understand the text.

I remember from childhood that many classmates put a ruler under the line and then moved it. I was also tempted to show my son this trick. But I was afraid that he would get used to the ruler and it would be difficult to wean him from it. So I just made sure that he did not lose lines, and after a couple of months the problem disappeared by itself.

What my son is reading now

When the primer was coming to an end, I started looking for a book to read so that my son could use it to develop a new skill: he learned to read faster and in whole words, not by syllables.

But it was not easy to find a good book. Although I had only three criteria:

1. Price within 300 R. I understood that my son would hardly re-read such a book, and did not want to pay more.
2. Lack of syllables and stress marks.
3. Texts that will be of interest to a five-year-old boy. Ideally, fairy tales.

There were a lot of good reviews on "Ozone" about the books "I read myself". But a set of 35 pieces cost about 2700 R, and there was little text. I figured that my son would read everything in a week, and regretted the money.

Another acquaintance told me about the addition to Zhukova's primer - "The first book to read after the primer." But I looked at the photo of the pages on the "Labyrinth" and realized that it would not suit my son. There were many verses of the classics, including those with obsolete words, and texts in the spirit of encyclopedias. Some of them even I was bored to read - not like a five-year-old child.

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As a result, I accidentally stumbled upon Ozone's book by Elena Bortnikova "We read fairy tales after the primer". It was a collection of 34 paperback tales that cost only 109R. He became a real find!

“We read fairy tales after the primer” by E. Bortnikova — 188 R

The book has many vivid illustrations, fairy tales are written in simple language, and they contain short sentences. Each fairy tale takes up a little more than a page, and the son masters it at a time. It usually takes half an hour, but the son gets tired only towards the end.

He likes the plot of fairy tales: they are mostly about the adventures of animals and toys. And at some moments he laughs heartily. But the main thing is that he reads each new fairy tale a little faster than the previous one. So, I hope that by the end of the collection he will greatly strengthen his reading skills and be able to master the fairy tales that I am reading to him myself.

My conclusions

I often heard from my acquaintances with children that it is better to come to school already reading. And I remember how easy it was for me myself in the first grade: I already knew how to read about myself and quickly understood the meaning of tasks in textbooks. So good grades were easy for me. I wanted my son to have the same in two years, so I began to work with him in advance.

I was convinced that in order to teach a child to read, it is not necessary to be a teacher or hire tutors. There are enough recommendations in the primer, and they are easy to follow. And most importantly, reading lessons do not take much time. We studied for only 10 minutes - and the son still mastered the primer.

I also realized that reading lessons do not require large financial investments. I think that in every house there are at least cubes with letters - they already diversify the process. If not, then cards and developmental notebooks can be found within 200 R.

/razvivashki/

In a year I spent 6587 R on developmental notebooks for the child

I think that the main thing in education is to listen to the child, not to force him or overload him. The rest will be done by his natural abilities.

Buying everything for reading myself, I would spend 3760 R

What came in handy	How much does it cost
Magnetic Lettering Easel	2340 R
Collection of poems by B. Zakhoder	442 R
Primer by N. Zhukova	312 R
Nature Quiz Game‎	215 R
Collection "We read fairy tales after the primer"	188 R
Letter Card Set‎	180 R
Notebook "Letterfoot"	83 P

What came in handy

How much it costs

Molbert with magnetic letters

2340 R

Collection of poems B. Svucoder

442 R

Primer N. Zhukova 9000 312 p

Game-Virgin »

215 R

Collection“ Read Tales after the Primer ”

188 R

Set of Cards“ Letters ”

180 R

Acker“ Lamping ”

83 R

To teach the child to read:

1. Wait until he becomes interested in letters.
2. Choose a primer: read reviews, ask friends, look at photo pages. If the pictures are bright and the texts are interesting, you can take it.
3. Look for magnetic alphabets, letter blocks, or reading cards at home. If not, you can buy something. Games make learning more interesting.
4. Work with your child when both are in the mood.
5. Do not overload it. It is better to finish the lesson before the child gets tired, then he will not have an aversion to classes.
6. Have a weekend: rest helps to better absorb knowledge.
7. Read all around with your child to practice the new skill more often.

Materials that will help parents save their budget and sanity are in our telegram channel @t_dety.

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How to teach a child to read | Psychologist's advice

Reading is a very useful activity for a child, it develops logic, thinking and memory, but how to teach a child to read by syllables, not all parents know. There are many developmental courses that offer to teach a child to read quickly and easily. But the main problem is not how to teach, but how to want a child to learn to read. This problem is rather connected with psychology, which needs to be solved, and then look for those courses that will teach the child to read quickly and easily.

Psychologists have sorted out the basic methods of how to teach and express a desire in a child to read. In the practice of many families, the effectiveness of these psychologists' advice was confirmed, and everyone who followed them solved this problem.

Why do you want to teach your child to read

Many parents make the mistake of looking for methods to teach a child to read in syllables, because they do not realize the purpose they do it. Decide whether you want to teach your child to read for better school performance, or for his own development. Reading for school means memorizing material, which makes no sense. And if you want to help a child develop and teach him to read, then this will give him more benefit, he will begin to think correctly, become smarter, smarter and wiser. It is necessary to teach a child to read from birth, but not for the purpose of memorization, but for the purpose of self-development.