Learn how to read english for kids

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!

10 Best Websites to Help Your Kids Read in English

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Why should you read in English with your child?

Childhood is the best time to start learning a second language. A positive early experience with English often leads to a better connection with the language and improved fluency in later life. For kids, speaking and listening are easier skills to develop than reading and writing. However, learning to read in English from a young age will help your child to develop a wider vocabulary and a better understanding of structure (grammar).

Children’s books are written and illustrated to be fun, engaging and easy to understand. Connecting a new piece of vocabulary or grammar to a story or poem can make it easier for a child to remember. Reading interesting stories doesn’t feel like hard work or “study” so this is good preparation for more formal English lessons later.

Reading together with your child can help them take more of an interest in it. If they struggle to read by themselves, then listening to you read a story in English will still help them to practise their listening skills and build their vocabulary. You might even find a new favourite story together!

The recommended websites below are a mix of British and American resources. Most include videos or audiobooks, which you can use with your child to practise listening and matching the sounds of words to how they are written. All of these kids’ reading websites are free to access and many of them offer downloadable ebooks! 

1.

This is a superb website for reading online because instead of giving you an ebook, its stories are in the form of interactive games! The story appears onscreen at the same time as it is read aloud, and you can interact with the story while it is being told. There are also bonus games to play afterwards, song videos, and printable activities. The site is built for young children, including pre-schoolers who are just learning their letters for the first time. New stories are added to this website regularly.

Each interactive story comes with at least one game, two songs, and a printable activity sheet to help your child practise new vocabulary that they have learnt during the story.

Try the Preschool Activity Library to find stories and activities based around your child’s interests – for example: colours, trains or their favourite animal! You can also look into the Literacy page for top tips on “raising a reader”!

We Enjoyed: I Will Not Take A Bath is a very funny little story about a baby who doesn’t want a bath until he has his favourite toys – why not practise telling the story with your child’s favourite bath-time toys?

Suggested Age Range: 3-6 years

2.

Starfall is an online resource build to help children learn to read. It offers interactive books for preschool children and young schoolchildren, each book is built around practicing particular letters and sounds. There are also seasonal stories – such as Pumpkin for Halloween or Snowman for Christmas – and simple maths exercises in English!

There are also lots of free resources for teaching your child at home, including printable worksheets, flashcards and posters. Some resources are only available to teachers in the USA and Canada, but there is more than enough material for you to use when teaching your kids English at home!

Try the Talking Library to practise reading and listening to famous stories – or even learn a bit of Shakespeare! Make sure you check out the Parent-Teacher Center for printables, advice, and even lesson plans!

We Enjoyed: The It’s Fun to Read section has some fun tongue-twisters to try! How fast can you say them all?

Suggested Age Range: 3-9 years

Are you worried that your child only wants to read their favourite story over and over? Don’t be! Studies have shown that children pick up vocabulary faster by rereading stories multiple times! It’s good to find new books and stories every so often, but rereading an old favourite is actually good for your child’s vocabulary and memory!

3.

Oxford Owl is a British website providing free ebooks, learning activities, and workbooks for children. You have to sign up to the site to gain full access, but creating an account is completely free and gives you access to a library of hundreds of books and structured learning resources! Sounds good, right?

All resources are categorised by age, making it easy to find stories that should interest your child. Activities and workbooks are also divided in this way, making it very easy to navigate what’s best for your son or daughter!

Try the phonics guide, which is written to help parents understand and teach English phonics to their children! If you want to practise writing as well as reading with your child, the Activity Books section includes a workbook for proper handwriting. This is especially useful if your native language doesn’t use the Roman alphabet!

We Enjoyed: The Winnie the Witch books are a fun series of stories about an inept witch, and have a lot of lively illustrations that are great for younger children to explore and talk about!

Suggested Age Range: 4-11 years

4.

Storyline Online is a great site for finding free videos of writers, teachers and sometimes celebrities reading children’s storybooks aloud. The videos come with fun visuals from the story as well! Each video also has free activity guides for both teachers and parents. These will give you plenty of ideas on how to discuss the story with your child, and games you can play afterwards.

The website’s blog also contains links to many other useful resources. Storyline is run by the award-winning SAG-AFTRA Foundation, and they are linked to a huge network of excellent literacy resources for children!

Try listening to a story one day, and then the next day too, watching it again with the sound off and the captions on. See if your child can imitate how the reader of the story talks! Don’t forget to look at the Activity Guides below each video to find ways to get your child thinking about the story they have just heard.

We Enjoyed: Library Lion is a cute, funny story that teaches children about how to behave politely in a library and the importance of helping other people.

Suggested age range: 3-12 years

Find out your child’s reading level! Every child will learn to read at a different speed. Pay attention to how easy or difficult your child finds the first few books you find for them and adjust the English level of these books if necessary. Learning to read should be challenging, but not so frustrating that they want to give up! Experiment to find the right balance.

5. Free Kids’ Books

This one is, quite simply, exactly what it says on the tin – a website dedicated to sharing children’s books for free! Books are sorted for toddlers, young children, older children and young adults/teenagers, and can all be either read online or downloaded as a pdf for offline reading.

As well as storybooks, this site has hundreds of non-fiction books, allowing your child to use English as a tool to learn about different countries, famous people, history, science, or whatever takes their fancy!

Try the School Textbooks category to find free textbooks and workbooks aimed both at American schoolchildren and kids studying English as a second language. The Learn to Read category is also an excellent stop if your child is just beginning to learn to read in English – it’s full of books that are simple, but engaging!

We Enjoyed: Sticky Brains by Nicole Libin is a great book for learning how to talk about emotions, as well as good and bad events. It is an easy way for kids to learn about managing stress in life.

Suggested Age Range: 3-15 years

6. The International Children’s Digital Library

The ICDL is an incredible resource for finding children’s books from all around the world. Most of the books are in English, but there are dozens of languages available. There are many books that are in more than one language, like the award-winning The Blue Sky by Andrea Petrlik Huseinović, which you can read in English, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Slovak, Romanian or Farsi! The website is easy to explore and gives you access to hundreds of books that you can read online for free!

Books are sorted by language, but also by country. You can decide whether you’d like to read books in English from America, Australia or Great Britain – just as we have different accents, you might notice some differences in how we write and tell stories!

Try finding some books that are available in both your native language and English. Read them together in your native language first, then read them together in English! Look for the White Ravens tag as well – these are top quality books that have been approved by a panel of language specialists!

We enjoyed: The Hare of Inaba, a translation of a famous Japanese fairy tale in English, German, Italian and Spanish. The story is short and easy to read and comes with many beautiful Japanese paintings!

Suggested Age Range: 5-12 years

If you read books from a variety of English speaking countries, you may notice some differences in spelling, such as “mum” and “colour” in British books, but “mom” and “color” in American ones. When learning the language, it’s important to choose one preferred variant of English. You should also encourage your child to understand the differences between British and American English.

7. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the world’s best resource for finding books for free online. Most of the books are older books, but there are still plenty of children’s books that can be read online or downloaded to read on your phone, tablet or kindle. Make sure to check the publication date of a book before using it because some of them are hundreds of years old and the English in them doesn’t look anything like modern English!

Project Gutenberg adds books to its library when they come into the public domain, so they add hundreds of new books every January 1^st. It’s a particularly useful site for teenagers who are interested in history!

Try reading different versions of a famous story, like Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and see what new words you can learn from different books! Make sure to use the Bookshelves feature to make it easy to find the kind of books you’re looking for, such as “Children’s Picture Books”!

We enjoyed: The Blue Fairy Book is a very pretty e-book with nearly forty famous stories that are easy to read quickly!

Suggested age range: 5+ years

8.

Breaking News English is a website that updates every day with news articles written in English at different fluency levels, ranked from 0 to 6. The articles written at levels 0-3 should be interesting to children, but the higher levels are excellent practise for teenagers and adults, too!

Each article comes with several activities attached, with different activities for each level. The goal of these tasks is to encourage children to think and talk about the news that they’ve just read and to help your child take an interest in what’s happening in the world!

When looking for articles, try picking a Theme that interests your child – e.g. the environment or technology. Older learners can look at articles focused around education and even business!

We enjoyed: Using the listening section to hear articles read aloud. You can listen to them at different speeds to make it easier or more challenging. You can also listen to them in either American or British English so you can get used to different accents!

Suggested Age Range: 6+ years

If a story doesn’t come with pictures, follow it up or take a break by encouraging your child to draw pictures for it! Drawing a story can demonstrate how well your child understands what they’re reading, and doing a drawing they’re proud of can help them remember the story and any new vocabulary in it. Then you can use the drawings when you want to read the story again! Creating comics with drawings and text is also a fun activity to try at home!

9. Storynory

Storynory is an excellent site with stories aimed at older children, teenagers, and even adults. Above the text of each story is an audio recording, so you can listen to it as you read. Hundreds of stories, poems and non-fiction books are accessible completely free!

Storynory also contains a sizeable library of poems, rhymes and music. Children have an easier time learning rhymes and songs because they have a rhythm. Practising some of the classics available on the site can really help your child remember new vocabulary too!

Try reading the comments that people have left under each story and decide if you agree or disagree. Once you’ve read a story, leave your own comment saying what you think of it! The Junior Stories section contains short stories for younger children, and while it’s not very big right now, the collection is growing fast!

We Enjoyed: The Histories of Herodotus have been written in easy English, so your child can learn some history in a fun and engaging way!

Suggested Age Range: 8+ years

10. Simple English Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the most useful sites on the internet for learning new things, but you can also use it to help your kids learn English! Simple English Wikipedia rewrites wikipedia articles to make them easier to read, which can be very useful when you’re learning English as a second language.

This website is not the best resource for absolute beginners. However, it can be very helpful for anybody with a couple of years’ experience reading in English who wants to expand their general knowledge and their reading ability.

Try reading about your own country or your child’s favourite movie and see if you can learn something new together! Alternatively, set your child a project to do on a particular subject and show them how to use wikipedia to research their topic online. This is a useful skill to learn.

We enjoyed: The page on Basic English includes a picture wordlist, which is a great resource for learning core English vocabulary and making your own flashcards at home!

Suggested age range: 10+ years

If you leave your child to do some reading alone and want to check up later how they did, don’t just quiz them on what happened in the story. Ask them who their favourite character is and why, or what they think of the story, and what they think is going to happen next! This can help you pick books your child will like in the future, and your child will be more engaged if they know you care what they think and feel about the story!

Want to improve your child’s English fast? We can help! Our British English teachers offer specialised 1-to-1 classes for kids that are educational and fun. We believe that a positive experience at an early age leads to a love of English and better fluency for life. Contact us today to book your free consultation and see how our online lessons can help your child succeed!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Charlotte J.
— ESL Tutor.

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English from scratch. Learning to read

What is the first thing a child is taught when he comes to school? Of course, the alphabet, and then reading and writing. Any teaching of a foreign language begins with the same. Is it possible to speak English without mastering the literacy? Yes, if you completely immerse yourself in the language environment. But even under such ideal conditions as living in an English-speaking country, you will still feel like a child in the company of adults. Without a decent knowledge of English, it is not easy not only to live in an English-speaking country, but also to travel the world. Even the airport is much easier to navigate for those who know how to read English.

So, it is clear that in order to master the language, you will definitely need to learn how to read. Any foreign course is built in such a way that in the first lessons you learn the alphabet and pronunciation. At the initial stages, of course, you will need to make an effort to remember how certain letters and letter combinations are read. But having mastered English literacy in the first lessons, you can easily voice any text, even filled with unfamiliar words.

How to learn to read English correctly. Some Tips

There are many ways to learn to read English. Someone resorts to the help of transcription. Others write down the pronunciation of English words using Russian letters. There are people who like to read aloud a lot. And someone focuses on audio files. In fact, all methods are good in their own way. When learning to read, it is not enough to learn letters, diphthongs and remember all the rules. In this matter, constant practice is important. Here are some tips to help you develop your English reading skills:

• Learn to listen to English. Oddly enough, but the ability to hear what the British and Americans say directly affects our ability to read. At the initial stage, adapted books are very useful, provided with discs with audio recordings of the texts themselves. Having before your eyes the text that the announcer reads, you learn to read correctly on a subconscious level.
• Try to read every day. Make it a rule to read English books for at least 20-30 minutes every day. Choose books according to your level of language proficiency. At the initial stage, you can read fairy tales and short stories. And in order to develop spoken language skills, it is also useful to occasionally look at English-language periodicals and blogs.
• Get used to writing in English. As you know, reading and writing are directly related. One follows from the other. If a person reads English at a decent level, then he will most likely state his thoughts on paper very competently. Getting to know native speakers is one of the most affordable and effective ways to improve your reading and writing skills. Communication in modern society is often based on correspondence in chats and social networks. Therefore, having met a native speaker, you yourself will not notice how correspondence in English will become part of everyday life. Introverts can be advised to keep a diary, which will be filled with entries in English.
• Learn English tongue twisters and poems. For example: Whether the weather be fine, or whether the weather be not. Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot. We'll weather the weather whether we like it or not Tongue twisters help to work out the pronunciation of complex sounds. Poems enrich vocabulary.
• Practice pronunciation. Spend time practicing those sounds that are unusual for Russian speakers. For example, the combination th is not given to every student the first time. And, of course, the easiest way to learn the correct pronunciation is to listen to the dialogues and monologues of native speakers. Modern TV series with English subtitles help to deliver the correct speech.

Suppose you want to learn to read English from scratch. In this case, you will have to start from the very beginning, that is, from the alphabet, consisting of 26 letters.

English alphabet (alphabet)

English has 20 consonants and 6 vowels. Vowels include letters: A, E, I, O, U, Y.

In order to learn the alphabet faster, you can turn to children's songs. Bright cards with letters also help a lot.

There are a few letters in the English language that "behave" differently from the rest. So, almost all consonants in English make one sound. But X is an exception. This letter conveys two sounds at once [ks]. It is also worth paying attention to the last character in the English alphabet. The pronunciation of Z depends on whether we are dealing with the British or American version of the language. In the first case, the letter is read as [zed], in the second - as [zi:].

The pronunciation of the letter R is also very different between the Americans and the British. In the UK, this is a long sound a [a:]. In the American alphabet - ar [a: r].

Reading English will be much easier if you learn the transcription, which is a system of signs used to record sounds. Since this or that letter may sound differently depending on what signs surround it, it can be difficult for a foreigner to read some words correctly without transcription. However, recently many students refuse to memorize the symbols of English phonetics. Indeed, thanks to the Internet, today you can easily listen to how the right word is read.

It's easy enough to remember how to read consonants in English. The fact is that you can easily find analogues in Russian for many consonant sounds. For example, the English Mm is, in fact, the familiar M [um]. And in the word lemon, the pronunciation of the consonant L is similar to the Russian L. Also, analogues in our language can be found with the consonants N, B, F, Z.

The pronunciation of the letter C depends on which characters it is adjacent to. If C is followed by the vowels I, E, Y, then it will be read as [s]. For example, in the word cinema (cinema). Before other vowels, C reads like [k]: come (come), camel (camel), cake (cake).

The consonants T and D in English are very similar to Russian T and D, only they are most often pronounced with a breath. But the letter Q will always be accompanied by a vowel U. The letter combination Qu is pronounced as [kw]. For example, in the word queen (queen). The consonant G before the vowels I, E, Y will be read as [j] - [dʒ]. For example, orange (orange), badge (icon). Before all other letters, G is pronounced like [g]: game (game), gale (storm).

Another unusual letter for the Russian language is Jj, which is always pronounced as [dʒ]. This consonant is very common in the names of representatives of English-speaking countries: Jack (Jack), James (James), Jane (Jane).

Below we provide a list of all English consonants with transcription:

Bb - [b]

Cc - [s] or [k]

Dd - [d]

Ff - [f]

Gg - [dʒ] or [g]

Hh - [h]

Jj-[dʒ]

Kk - [k]

Ll - [l]

mm - [m]

Nn-[n]

Pp - [p]

Qq - [kw]

Rr - [r]

Ss - [s] or [z]

Tt - [t]

Vv - [v]

Ww - [w]

Xx - [ks] or [gz]

Zz - [z]

Reading in English for beginners is usually complicated not by consonants, which are often read the same way as they sound in the alphabet, but by vowels. There are only 6 vowels in English, but the problem is that each of them, depending on the position in the word, can have several reading options. Much is determined by whether the letter is in stressed or unstressed position. For stressed vowels, there are 4 types of syllable in English:

1. An open syllable is a syllable ending in a vowel or a consonant (except R) followed by a silent E. A stressed vowel in an open syllable is pronounced as it is pronounced in the alphabet. For example, plane (plane), placement (room), he (he).
2. A closed syllable is a syllable that ends in one consonant (excluding r) or several consonants. The stressed vowel in such a syllable is transmitted in a short and clear sound. The vowel A is pronounced as the middle between e and a [æ]. For example, cat (cat). The letter O in stressed position in a closed syllable sounds like [ɒ] in the word dog (dog), E - like [e] (for example, ten - ten). Vowels Y and I in a closed syllable are pronounced as [i] (little - small, myth - myth). Finally, the stressed letter U will resemble a somewhat slurred short sound and [ʌ] (cut - cut).
3. If a stressed vowel is followed by the consonant R alone or in combination with other consonants, then the vowels will be read as follows:

• a [ɑː] - long Russian sound a - park (park)
• o [ɔː] - lingering long Russian sound o - sport (sport)
• e [ɜː] - resembles the Russian sound ё in the word "honey" - fern (fern)
• y [ɜː] - byrd (bird)
• i [ɜː] - first (first)
• u [ɜː] - burn (burn)

4. If a stressed vowel is followed by a consonant R in combination with any vowel, then the syllables are divided into diphthongs or triphthongs (complex sounds consisting of two or three letters pronounced as one). In this combination, the vowel A sounds like [ɛə]. For example, in the word fare (fare, fare). The vowel O in the fourth type of syllable will be pronounced as a long Russian sound O [ɔː]. An example here is the word more (more). The vowel E under stress is pronounced as something of a fusion between Russian I and A [ɪə], for example mere (only). Y and I with the fourth type of syllable are read as [aɪə]. For example, in the words fire (fire) and tire (tire). The letter U turns into the sound [jʊə] (during - during).

At the initial stages of learning a foreign language, students will also need to find the answer to the question of how to read diphthongs in English. This term refers to combinations of two letters that give one sound.

Table of English diphthongs. Consonants

If you are seriously wondering how to learn to read in English, you will also have to learn diphthongs with vowels. Here is some of them:

1. ai, ay, ei, ey - [ei] - aim (goal, task)
2. ai - [eə] - air (air). Before consonant R
3. ae - [ɪ:] - aegis (protection, aegis)
4. au - [o] - autumn (autumn)
5. ea, ee - [ɪ:] - meal (food). Only if the vowel is not followed by the letter R
6. ea, ee - [ɪə] - dear (dear). In position before R
7. ie - [ɪ:] - field (field).
8. oa - [ou] or [o:] - boat (boat)
9. oi, oy - [oi] - enjoy (enjoy)
10. oo [u:] or [u] or [uə] - moon (moon), book (book), poor (poor)
11. ou - [au] - ground (earth). In the middle of a word

Those who have been reading English for quite some time rarely remember all the rules for pronouncing diphthongs. And even more so in the process of reading, not everyone pays attention to the fact that some consonants are dumb. But at the initial stage of learning, it is important to remember that the following letters are not read in English:

• G and K before N at the beginning and end of a word. Foreign (foreign)
• B and N after M. Autumn (autumn)
• W before R. Wrong (incorrect)
• P before N and S. Psychology (psychology)

You can learn to read English from scratch on your own. Do not try to cover everything at once, learn the sounds gradually. After you learn a diphthong or a letter, do not forget to consolidate the result by performing special pronunciation exercises.

In fact, there are a lot of rules for reading in English and exceptions to them, we have considered only the main ones. True, it is not necessary to learn them all. As you memorize new words, memorize their pronunciation and spelling immediately. So you will not have an urgent need to master all the rules of reading.

How to quickly learn to read English from scratch on your own. Tips for learners of English.

05/26/2017

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When you study a foreign language, you study not only a set of vocabulary and grammar, but in any case you come across the culture and mentality of the people who speak this language. The best means of learning the language and culture is reading in the original . And in order to read in a foreign language, you must first learn to read in that language .

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

It is not necessary to burn books to destroy a culture. You can just get people to stop reading them.

---

~Ray Bradbury

Is there an easy way to learn to read English ? If you studied English at school, you should have got an idea of ​​how English letters are read, you know what transcription is and how basic letter combinations are read. If your level is not beginner, but for example intermediate, then you will be interested in the article "Books in English for the intermediate level"

But, if at school or university you studied German or French, or your school base turned out to be smaller than you would like, and now you decide to learn English, then let's start with the most primary and basic and learn a few techniques where to start to learn the rules of reading.

English alphabet

I think you know that English is different from Russian and German, in which we mostly read and write. In English, the system is a little more complicated. The very first thing we need to do is to learn the alphabet.

There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, of which 21 are consonants and 5 are vowels. Knowing the letters and the ability to pronounce them correctly is the key to successful and competent reading in English.

English alphabet with transcription of letter names.

A very easy way to remember letters visually and aurally is with the help of a song. Watch the video and sing the song until you remember the letters of the alphabet.

You can use the same method to teach the alphabet to your children and sing along with your little ones.

Rules for reading in English

After studying the alphabet, let's start studying the combination of letters and reading short words. In English, there are a number of rules that you need to learn, practice and remember if you want to read English words correctly.

The same letter can be read in different ways, depending on the letters that surround it, as well as whether it is a closed or an open syllable.

Rules for Reading English Consonants

Many consonants read similarly to Russian consonants, for example, the letters m, n, l, b, f, z . You can see this in words like mom, lemon, finger, boy, zebra .

Letters like t and d sound similar, but are pronounced with aspirated . For example, the words table, teacher, dad, dirty .

The letter c has two readings. Before the letters i,e,y it reads like [s] - city, face, cyber . And before the rest of the vowels, it reads like [k] - cat, cake, factory .

The rule with the vowels i,e,y also applies to the letter g . Before them, it reads like [dʒ] - gym, George, giant . Before other consonants, the letter reads like [g] .

The letter q is always found in combination with the letters qu and is read as [kw] - quick, queen, square .

The letter j is always read as [dʒ] - jacket, jam, joy .

Table of the ratio of consonants and sounds in English.

How vowels are read in English

In English, a word can end in an open or closed syllable, which affects pronunciation. For example, the words cat, pot, sit end in a closed syllable and have vowels a, o, i give sounds [a, o, i] .

Words such as name, home, five end in an open syllable, since the letter e is at the end of the word, which is not readable. But, thanks to her, the vowels in the middle of the word are read exactly the same as they are pronounced in the alphabet, that is, the word name is read [neɪm].

Types of reading English vowels in stressed syllables.

Reading vowel combinations in English

There are certain combinations of letters that have established reading rules, although English is the language of exceptions, and when reading more complex words, you should consult a dictionary. The table below shows combinations of English vowels with examples of , how they are read and what sound they make.

Table of vowel combinations in English.

And of course, there are exceptions to all rules. However, do not worry and think that you will never be able to learn it. Everything can be understood, you just need to try a little and practice.

English diphthongs with transcription

When you learn the basic rules of reading, you will see that in English there are diphthong sounds that are quite difficult to reproduce, especially if you start learning the language not from childhood, but in adulthood.

Table of English diphthongs with transcription.

Transcription of sounds in English

Practice shows that when children learn a language, they must necessarily study transcription, while adults do not want to learn it, and for them it can be difficult.

If you still want to learn how to write and read transcription, then great! And if not, then you can use online dictionaries where the word will be pronounced for you. One of the best dictionaries for today is Multitran and the online dictionary Lingvo.

Important!

Remember that it is necessary to use dictionaries, not translators!

Here is an example of reading short words with transcription:

Table of English vowel sounds and transcription.

The fact that we live in the age of the Internet has some advantages. Sitting at home, you can learn different knowledge online. To your attention video lesson , which explains the basic principles of reading. However, even after gaining knowledge through an online lesson, they need to be consolidated in order to form a skill.

Tips on how to quickly learn to read English

In this section, we would like to share with you the experience that we gained in practice, teaching students of different levels. These tips have proven to be effective and useful in language learning. They can be used for levels from beginner to advanced. Use)

Learn English tongue twisters

Here tongue twisters can help you, which are often aimed at practicing one sound. Here are some examples you can use.

English tongue twister	Russian translation
Whether the weather be fine, or whether the weather be not. Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot. We'll weather the weather whether we like it or not.	The weather will be good or the weather will not be good. The weather will be cold or the weather will be hot. We will weather any weather whether we like it or not.
Three swiss witch-bitches, which wished to be switched swiss witch-bitches, watch three swiss Swatch watch switches. Which swiss witch-bitch', which wishes to be a switched swiss witch-bitch, wishes to watch which swiss Swatch switch?	Three Swiss bitch witches, wishing to change their gender, looking at the three buttons on the Swatch watch. What a swiss bitch witch wishing to change their gender, looking at which button on the watch "Swatch"?

Do not worry that these are tongue twisters! At this stage, when you are just learning to read and practicing sounds, it is important to pronounce them correctly, albeit slowly. You can always speed up.

Learn to hear English speech

After learning the basic, basic rules of reading, you can use the method of repeating after the announcer. Your auditory memory will also work and you will hear how words are pronounced correctly and what intonation is in sentences.

For this you can use small dialogues and audiobooks for beginners. At this level, it will be ideal if the text is in front of your eyes, you listen, read and repeat at the same time!

You can use a great resource like Oxford bookworm Library for audiobooks for all levels. You can download the library for free here

For those who continue to learn English, we recommend learning the language from movies, which you can read about in the article "10 sites to learn English from movies"

Work on the pronunciation of

The ability to read is only the first step in learning a language. As well as learning grammar and vocabulary, learning how to pronounce and hear correctly is very important if you want to understand what is being said to you and say it so that you are understood. Especially if you're talking to a native speaker.

As we said a little above, one of the best ways is to listen carefully to native speakers and try to copy their pronunciation and intonation .

Pay special attention to sounds that are not in your native language. Often, English learners have a problem with the 'r' sound, as in Russian it is hard, while in English it is more guttural and growling.

There are also difficulties with the pronunciation of two sounds, which gives the combination of the letters ‘th’ . Students stubbornly pronounce it as 'c' and 'h'. Although it is worth paying attention that in such words as this, that, there this sound is said as between 'z' and 'd'. And in words like three, think, thief, it is pronounced as a sound between ‘f’ and ‘s’.

This may seem strange to you, since there are no such sounds in the Russian language, but if you listen to native speakers, you will understand that this is what they say.

Don't worry if you can't get these words right the first time, it takes a little practice. But, try to learn correctly from the very beginning, because it will be more difficult when you are forced to relearn.

Learn to pronounce phrases in English correctly

In English, words in sentences are not pronounced separately, they often merge, as if into one whole, especially if it is a combination of vowel and consonant letters. Look and practice on these transcription examples.

Phrase	Transcription	Translation
Look at those children.	/lʊkətðoʊzˈtʃɪldrən/	Look at these children.
Turn off the TV.	/tɜrnəv ðətiː:viː:/	Turn off the TV
Let's ask that man.	/lɛtsæsk ðət mæn/	Let's ask this person.
Don't open the window.	/doʊntoʊpənðəˈwɪndoʊ/	Do not open the window.
Let's eat at home.	/lɛtsit əthoʊm/	Let's eat at home.

The same applies to phrases where one word ends with the letter 'r' and the next word begins with a vowel. In such cases, the 'r' sound is pronounced. Here are some examples:

Finally:

We hope that this article has helped you understand how you can and should start learning English, and you have become familiar with some useful resources.

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