This post is for my good friend A who asked me about my post Recently Read. She asks about this and other resources that have worked for us:
There are three main books I’ve used to teach my kids to read:
I’ve used three different books because my children are all different. I tried Phonics Pathways for Paco and then 100 Lessons — 100 Lessons worked better for him. The opposite was true with Migi. Phonics Pathways worked well for him. Yena’s reading, but still needs help, so I’m using 100 Lessons off and on together with Writing Road. We also tried Writing Road with the first 3 and it worked to varying degrees. With Aisa (our oldest) we used this cassette-booklet set that came with our encyclopedias, but I don’t even know if it’s available separately or what they call it. I suggest borrowing the books from your library (or through interlibrary loan) so you can try them out for a few days (one book at a time) and determine which one would work best for you and your child. Sometimes it’s a personality thing, or the way your child learns, or the way YOU like to teach.
I do need to clarify what I mean by “use”. It doesn’t mean we sat down everyday and read from these learn-to-read books. Though there may have been consecutive days here and there — Migi probably more than anyone else — the bulk of our reading lessons came from read alouds. Books and books and books. Our kids were read to from the time they were infants (some even in the womb, though I wasn’t religious about that and didn’t follow any “program”).
At some point the child begins to get interested in learning the letters and the sounds that go with them. Or if you’re eager to get them started you can try and teach a few letters (less than 5) and see how that goes. I don’t subscribe to the idea that you need to teach phonics first before the names of the letters, or vice versa. I simply say that this letter is called “A”, and it makes the sound Ä and ÇŽ (for starters). If the child doesn’t get it the first time, there’s always another opportunity.
Besides letters and their sounds, I taught the kids how to recognize “a”, then “the”, then “an” — since these words are fairly common in children’s read-alouds. When they could recognize those we’d do a rebus-type reading where I’d point to the word, they sound it out, and then I continue reading until we get to the next “a”, “an”, or “the”. At some point I introduce “I” and “and”. We only do this until the child decides he/she has had enough for the day/reading session, and then I read the rest of the book without pausing. This teaches the child 3 things — confidence that they can read, that books are read one word at a time, and that reading IS fun.
One special lesson would be their name. Whether kids know how to read or not, they take great interest in their name. So we let him/her write his/her name over and over and over, on as many pieces of paper as they want, every day, all day, whatever. It doesn’t matter that they don’t understand yet how each letter’s sound is put together to make the sound of his/her name. What matters is the child loves writing because the word/name is important to her. This immediately reinforces the fact that letters make sounds and sounds become words. At some point the child will grasp exactly that.
We then go to two- and three-letter words. A, an, and. Be, bed. Cat. Do, dog. I don’t really have a system for teaching these. When we come across them in books, I point them out and ask the child if she can “sound it out”. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t.
Once the child is reading 2- and 3- letter words, has the basics down (I, you, the, and, no, yes, etc.) — then they usually take off with books, which we have plenty of around the house. I handle reading the same way I do writing. I let them read and write. When they come to a word they can’t read/spell, they ask me. I provide the answer right away. If I feel they’re up to a little challenge, I say, “try to sound it out”. But you don’t want to frustrate a child too much to the point that they’ll give up; for instance, if a child is attempting to spell “elephant” and wanted to stop trying at “ele”, just go ahead and spell out the rest. Same thing with reading. If they sound out s-u-p-e-r and wanted to stop there, don’t force them to read all the way to the end of “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.
You can let them play with letter puzzles,
or those wooden blocks with letters on them,
or magnetic letters on your refrigerator, (it helps to have two sets of these):
If they want to write, let them. The funniest (and most revealing) pieces of work that my children produced at an early age were their first attempts at spelling, usually around 4 or 5. I remember being amazed at how “smart” they were — hahaha!!! (Well, they are, just that most kids their age given the same opportunity would probably produce the same things/writings.) And they often made me wonder at just how complicated the English language is. For instance, why write “spell” when one “l” is all you really need? Why do we have silent letters — why not just take them off? I can tell you that their many letters/notes/poems are highly readable and understandable, even though the spelling is all wrong! They actually made sense.
Other things that we’ve used around here that may be helpful:
- Wordless books
(I’ll do a post about this one of these days) — These are wonderful because there’s no pressure for the child to “read”, they can let their imagination and vocabulary run free. The stories will make sense because they’re following the sequence of the pictures, but oh, how you will enjoy the little embellishments that they are bound to add.
- Classic children’s literature
— books like The Peter Rabbit books, Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Gorilla, etc. (Okay, I’ll do a post about this one too, one of these days). I have a confession to make: I have a strong aversion to Dr. Seuss books. I do not like them at all; I do not like the silly rhymes and the non-words, BUT I cannot deny that they are powerful tools for the beginning reader. I even begrudgingly allowed our 5-yo to take them out of the “donate box” where she found them. Ugh.
- Chapter books
— Though it will be a while before your emerging reader is able to take these on, reading longer books to your child will increase their capacity for listening. Once you are able to hold their attention with a few paragraphs instead of a few sentences, it’s time to read them books like The Chronicles of Narnia, or The Wind in the Willows, etc. (Another post, another day.)
Two most valuable lessons I’ve learned:
Nothing works better than to read-read-read to your child. Now that the kids are older and read on their own, it is not unusual for us to have 100+ books from the library at a time. And of course they still read and reread the ones in our own library. But even when we only had one child, we had at least 50 kids’ books lying around the house. It pays and pays big. As one homeschooling mom put it, I’ve taught them to read, now the rest is up to them. Perhaps it doesn’t exactly work that way, but when a child knows how to read AND what to read (learning by exposure which books are great and which are so-so or junk), you can pretty much rest assured that he/she will be a lifelong learner, and will continue to learn whether you’re there or not.
Relax. Most children will read when they are ready to read. Forcing them to read before they have the hunger to do so just makes the process harder, for you and for them. Trust in your own instincts and the child’s. They learned to walk and talk, they’ll learn to read. What’s important is that the material is there, available to them.
I should probably add a third: turn the TV off. While there are some good educational programs, e.g., Between the Lions, that will help your child read, there is still nothing better than learning to read while cuddled snugly in Mommy or Daddy’s arms, with a well-loved book. A parent’s loving touch and presence oftentimes can make the difference between a child that loves to learn and a child that learns because he is told he has to learn.
As you can probably tell, I’m not much into hi-tech toys either, even the ones that teach kids to read. They will learn, yes, but I personally would regret not having been the one that helped them through this one very basic skill. There are so many things that can pull our children away from us, especially as they grow older. I’d like to think that reading is one of those things that kept them close when they were little, and that may continue to draw them close to us, as they grow and explore other worlds. A shared love of reading is a special bond that holds parent and child together, especially if it’s a habit that started when they were young.
I think the most important part to remember here is that a child benefits, WHATEVER PROGRAM you choose to use, when you take the TIME to sit with the child, read with him/her, correct any mistakes gently, and just practice, practice, practice. I am not talking about children who have real learning disabilities. Obviously there will need to be some kind of evaluation and a program put together for children who have a harder time processing information. Parents who have their children’s best interests at heart will know to follow their instincts and seek help if needed.
Learning to read can be different from child to child. I’ve heard many stories of children learning to read at 3 (my mom insists I was reading the newspaper at that age). I also have friends whose kids didn’t read proficiently until 8 or 9, or even later. (But boy, once they get started, they get going fast!) My children have been somewhat different — one read proficiently at 4, two others at 6. I’m really taking my time with my youngest, having her practice reading when SHE feels like it. Sometimes I offer to sit with her to practice reading, but I’ve never pressured her to do so. If she reads proficiently soon, great. If not, I can wait a year or two. I know she’ll be fine. She’s already in love with books, with language, with great stories. She reads words here and there when she wants to. This relaxed approach I could never have foreseen myself using when I had my first child. That’s just normal — when you’re a first time mom, you always worry that you’re not doing enough or you’re not doing things on time, and your child will be delayed, etc., etc. Having more children and growing in confidence as a parent helps a lot.
My children may not be geniuses, but who says they have to be? As long as they know they can learn what they want to learn, as long as they have confidence in themselves that they can accomplish things, as long as they have confidence in the materials around them and in the adults that help them, they’ll be fine. Your kids too:)
One more thing: I want to reiterate that I’m not a reading expert. Though I assume readers that come here already know that, it would be better to lay it out plainly. I don’t even have my “phive phones” straight (I don’t have them memorized and I can’t explain them in detail, but I can tell you we use all of them here). All I know is that I’ve tried some things and know people who have done the same things, and we share the same opinions about teaching a child to read. Whether the experts agree with us or not is not really that important to me at this point. What’s #1 on my list is that I’ve done my job as a parent and as my child’s primary educator. Everything else — “expert” opinion, etc. — is secondary.
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