Mixed feelings can come up when you think about how to teach your child to read. After all, their future, livelihood, and happiness depend on them being able to read! However, that can bring a lot of stress for us as parents. Feelings such as self-doubt, anxiety, and frustration are prominent.
How To Teach a Child to Read While Dealing with Your Feelings
Self Doubt-These feelings can stop us from thinking that we are the best choice for teaching our children. We may think that since we do not have a college degree in teaching, that we must not be the best choice for teaching our children anything, let alone how to read.
Anxiety-Not sure where to start? I understand! There are so many options out there that it is overwhelming! How do I know which program to use, and how do I know if I will have success with any one program?
Frustration-Any time you attempt to teach your child to read it ends in one or more of you crying. Furniture is overturned (ahem speaking from experience here.) And the vicious cycle of doubt, anxiety, and frustration just repeats itself.
Even when things seem to be going well, we can feel the pressure for everything to fall into place right away. I often had thoughts such as “If they don’t learn this specific skill right now, they will never learn!”
Or “Oh no! If they don’t learn to spell this specific word correctly now, they will never learn to spell!”
Again, the list can go on and on.
What if you could teach your child to read, but also do the following:
- Keep things simple
- Stop overwhelming yourself or your child
- Stop feeling like you need to do All. The. Things.
Is My Child Behind?
Often I see parents worrying that their child is behind in reading. I worried about this too. However, I found that when I was worried that they were behind, I simply wasn’t giving them enough time to develop a certain reading skill. I truly believe that if you are devoted to your child’s education, then you will not need to worry about them falling behind. You will be in their corner doing all you need to do to help them. However, that doesn’t mean you need to jump through hoops to get them where they need to be.
Most of the time, kids are ready when they are ready. No amount of pushing will fix that. Trust me, I know.
How to Keep Things Simple
Start with letter sounds when teaching your child to read. Do not be worried if your child does not know all their letter sounds. Take time to reinforce these skills, and do not rush the process. You will be surprised what your child can pick up on in a short time.
How to Teach Letter Sounds
Remember that these skills can be developed over time. The expectations should be to build foundations, not master skills.
Make A Game Of It. Put letter tiles or sticky notes around the house with letters on them. Match them with the lowercase and upper case letters. As they are looking around the house for the letter have them repeat the sound of the letter. Or when they find the letter match, sing a silly song about the letter sound. Lots of encouragement can go a long way, especially if they do not get the concept right away.
Look at Picture Books. When looking at picture books ask them things such as “Can you find something that begins with the /s/ sound?” Do not worry about pointing out errors right now. For instance, if you are looking for something that begins with an S and they point at a picture or a circus, or a city, which sounds like /s/ but begins with “c”, commend them for hearing the same sound, but do not point out that city actually begins with a “c” and not an “s”…see I just probably made that confusing, so imagine trying to explain it to a child. It’s just not necessary. Besides, these are skills that come much later in reading.
Make Rhymes. Make up silly rhyming words. Rhyming is an important pre-reading skill. Discuss why the words rhyme in a story or song. This is the way to lay a great foundation for when you introduce word families.
Introducing Word Families and CVC Words
Introduce Basic Word Families. Words in the same word family have the same ending. Words such as MAT, CAT, BAT, PAT, SAT, and so on are all words in the same word family. While these words also are rhyming words, they are a great way to help a child read simple CVC words.
Introduce CVC Words. CVC words are words that follow a consonant, vowel, consonant letter pattern.
Stick with only short vowel sounds, saving long vowel sounds for later.
Once your child knows all their letter sounds they can put together simple CVC words.
A Small Word About Sight Words
When beginning to teach your child to read, sight words should not be on your radar right away. I have seen so many parents ask where to go next after their child has learned their letter sounds…they are ready to move to sight words, but this is not the next step. The next step is building CVC words.
Sight words do not follow a pattern. That is why they are called sight words, they need to be learned by sight, not by following any certain pattern. This can only confuse your child more.
How to Teach Your Child to Read With a Dyslexia Diagnosis
The tips found in this post are the same for a child with a dyslexia diagnosis, as it would be for a child without it. There is no special cure, or secret for helping children with dyslexia. Often more time and practice is all that is required. However, do not assume a struggling child has dyslexia. Many parents think their child has dyslexia when in reality, they just need more time and practice to develop needed skills.
Handwriting goes hand in hand with dyslexia. So, practice handwriting and correcting the child when a letter isn’t formed properly.
Again, there is no different way to teach a child with dyslexia to read. And there is no “fix” for dyslexia. More practice and exposure to words and reading will help things go more smoothly.
Pointers To Help Any Child Learn to Read
Anytime you are reading with your child, you should be modeling good reading habits. Emphasizing any punctuations, and showing the proper feelings when reading. As your child follows along in the story, you can point to the words as you are saying them. This can help your child see and hear the letter sounds, but also help them understand reading goes from left to right.
Stop often to ask comprehension questions. Simple questions such as “How would you feel if you were a character in this story?” or “What do you think the person is feeling right now?” or even simpler questions such as “What color is the cat in this story?” or “What is the child’s name in the story?”
When an unusually spelled word comes along point it out and talk about it. (Sight words can sometimes fall into this category.) Respond in a helpful manner when they pronounce a word wrong. Remember mistakes are learning practices!
Allow Your Child to Read What Interests Them
I feel like maybe this is a no brainer, however, I found myself pushing stories and books that I liked on my boys. I finally realized it wasn’t worth the fight. When I started allowing them to read what interested them, even if it was with silly boy humor, everyone was happier.
Ask yourself these important questions: “Can they read?” and “Are they reading?” If the answer is yes to both of those, then you are just fine, be happy with that, and allow them to develop their own reading interests.
Teach Your Child to Read With These 4 Simple Steps
Try these tips and tricks to get your child reading in 4 simple steps. These can be used with ANY reading program.
Choose one story to read and focus on with your child for the week. This should be a story that your child can reasonably read with practice.
- Day 1-First, you read the story to your child, while modeling good reading habits.
- Day 2-Then, read the story while your child is repeating each word after you as they follow along.
- Day 3-You read the sentence, and they read at the same time. Emphasize punctuation and add feelings to the words.
- Day 4-Finally, allow your child to try their new reading skills out! If they are not ready to read on their own, do not worry. Just keep practicing and giving encouragement.
This process can be done with even the simplest of stories. Adjust as needed and consider starting with CVC word books. Use this method for as long as necessary. We used this method until second grade!
Choose a Reading Curriculum For Your Child
When we started teaching our boys to read, I knew I wanted a curriculum that was proven to work for many families. I wanted to choose a curriculum that I knew had been around and trusted for years. That is why I chose Hooked On Phonics! We loved Hooked on Phonics, and it has proven to be a great choice for our family! Find out if its the right choice for you too!
Though we loved Hooked on Phonics, I found we needed more. My Younger son was devouring anything I could find for him to read. And on the other hand, my older son was easily discouraged when it came to reading anything that had too many sight words, or that had many words at all.
As they say necessity is the mother of invention, so I created my own CVC Word Family Worksheets and Decodable Readers! I hope they help you and your little one! Check them out here!
