Free First Words Resources to Help You Teach Your Child to Read
Please enjoy these free resources to help you teach your child to memorize vocabulary words. When children memorize vocabulary words while they are learning their ABCs, it teaches them that words have meaning and are made up of letters. It’s kind of a part to whole, whole to part thing.
I carefully selected these words to appeal to young children who are just learning to speak. Each word is something they can relate to and either has an action related to it or refers to a physical object. I also include words with suffixes so children can start to become familiar with how suffixes don’t change the core meaning of the word.
Words Flashcards (4 per page)
About These Flashcards
- Print from a Chrome Browser to make sure the margins are correct, and make sure “fit to page” is not selected. You may have problems getting the correct margins if you use the Edge browser.
- Print on card stock and laminate.
Tips and Tricks for Using My First Words Flashcards
- Point to the word as you say it. The goal isn’t to sound the word out (that will come later), the goal is for the child to basically memorize the shape of the entire word.
- As children learn to memorize these first words, they are developing a very important concept which is that words have meaning. The more words they learn, the easier this concept will be to understand.
- Make sure your child understands the meaning of the word while you’re sharing the flashcards. For example, ask your child to wave when showing the word wave or pretend to drink out of a cup for the word cup.
- Use my flashcards and video together to really solidify learning.
Tips and Tricks for Using My First Words Video
- Start watching when your child is as young as 6-8 months old (or start at any age).
- As your child is introduced to the video, repeat some of the things that are said so they hear your voice along with the video. Say the chant along with the video and comment where appropriate. (“Can you wave your hand like Ophelia?”)
- Wait until your child is alert and in a good mood. With my children, I found that meal or snack time was often a good time to watch learning videos.
- Stop watching the video when your child loses interest. As children get more familiar with the video, their attention spans will increase, especially if you’re using the flashcards at cuddle time as well.
- Eventually, after watching the video enough times with you, your child will be engaged with it enough to watch it independently. Then maybe you can go take an uninterrupted shower!
For More Information
- For a simple overview for how to teach your child to read, check out my blog: Teach Your Child to Read in 5 Simple Steps, and for a more in depth look at teaching reading, check out my: Teach Your Child to Read Blog Series.
- Check out my Free Reading Resources page to access all of the flashcards, posters, and video digital downloads you’ll need to teach your child how to read.
Follow These Steps to Teach Your Child How to Read:
I created these resources to help any parent (or teacher) teach their child/children to read in a fun and back to basics kind of way. If you follow these steps, your child will learn how to read easily and naturally just like my own five children did.
- Language Rich Environment: Use oral language at the child’s level (Get down on the floor and play together!) and help them memorize vocabulary words. (Tell them the names of things!)
- Phonemic Awareness: Teach one sound for each letter of the alphabet. (Start with short vowels.)
- Phonics: Tap out sounds in three letter words to teach how sounds come together to make words.
- More Complex Phonemic Awareness: Introduce long vowels, digraphs, and other vowel sounds.
- Reading Comprehension Strategies: Use quality literature to interact with books and ask questions before, during, and after reading to make sure your child is understanding what is being read.
Start young! It’s better to do a little bit over a long period of time rather than try to cram it all in the month before preschool or kindergarten starts. Read more about how to teach your child to read in my blog: Teach Your Child to Read in 5 Simple Steps.
For More Information
You’ll find everything you need to teach your child to read on my FREE READING RESOURCES page which includes flashcards, videos, plus more tips and tricks. If you’d like a more in depth guide to teach your child how to read, check out my blog series.
Teach Your Child to Read Blog Series (Digging Deeper)
- #1-Oral Language Development Lays the Foundation for Learning to Read
- #2-How Engage Your Baby or Young Child with Reading
- #3-Learning How to Read Begins with the ABCs
- #4-Memorizing Words Before Sounding Them Out Leads to Reading
- #5-Building Vocabulary with Numbers, Colors, and Shapes
- #6-Teaching Phonics with Three Letter Word Families
- #7-Unlock the Final Stages of Reading with Advanced Phonemic Awareness
- #8-Reading Comprehension Strategies Lead to Independent Readers
- #9-Reinforcing Reading with Writing
