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Tag Archive for: phonemic awareness

Teach Your Child to Read in 5 Simple Steps

General, Reading, Teaching
teach your child to read in 5 steps

Teaching your child to read can be easy and fun, especially if you start when they are young! If you provide a language rich environment filled with lots of oral language and vocabulary development, teach the ABCs really really well, make reading fun and read often, teach them how to sound out three letter words, and introduce them to the tricky bits of our English language, you will be amazed to see your child read easily, naturally, and as if by magic. My fifth child is about to turn 3, and I am blown away to see him reading signs, peoples names, and words in books that he has never seen before.

In this blog, I will share my  reading resources that I have created over the last ten years while teaching my own children to read to help any parent (or teacher) teach their child/children to read in a fun and back to basics kind of way. If you start when your child is young and follow these steps, you will be amazed at how easily your child will learn to read.

How to Teach Your Child to Read in 5 Simple Steps

I will be covering these steps in more depth throughout the blog and include both resources as well as tips and tricks along the way. I tried to keep things as simple and basic as possible in this blog, but if you’d like a more in depth look at how to teach your child to read with explanations from science, research, and my own observations as to how children best learn how to read, then check out my blog series: Teach Your Child to Read.

  1. 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!)
  2. Phonemic Awareness: Teach one sound for each letter of the alphabet. (Start with short vowels.)
  3. Phonics: Tap out sounds in three letter words to teach how sounds come together to make words.
  4. More Complex Phonemic Awareness: Introduce long vowels, digraphs, other vowel sounds, and other consonant sounds.
  5. 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.

1. Language Rich Environment (Oral Language and Vocabulary)

Surround your child with learning opportunities by creating a language rich environment. Place developmentally appropriate toys at their level so they can choose to play with them. Show them how to interact with new toys so that they have options for how to play with them. Choose educational toys that foster language development, especially toys that teach letters, colors, shapes, numbers, letters, words, fine motor skills, and encourage problem solving. This Montessori approach to learning encourages children to be independent and self directed with their learning.

Oral Language Development Tips and Tricks

Oral language development begins before babies are even born! When babies are born, they recognize the cadence and prosody of your voice, then they coo and have conversations with you, and before children start speaking, they are listening to everything you say. Read more about how oral language lays the foundation for reading here and more about how to engage your baby or young child with reading here.

  • Speak slowly and clearly using simple words they can understand.
  • Use lots of short repeated sentences.
  • When they start speaking, repeat back to them what they are saying sometimes adding more words into the description.
  • Ask questions all the time that are simple and relate to what they are doing. (Say, “What’s in your hand? Is that a ball? Can you throw me the ball? Good job!”).
  • Talk about what you’re doing and have them help you. (Say, “We’re going to have hamburgers for dinner. First, I need to squish them up and make patties. Can you help me?”)
  • Get down on the floor and play with your child! Encourage them to play imagination games and provide problem/solution scenarios that they can carry out independently.
  • Sing songs, especially ones with hand motions. Make up songs about what you are doing.
  • When you are out and about, talk to your child about everything you see and are doing.

Vocabulary Tips and Tricks

As adults, I think we take for granted all of the background knowledge we can access subconsciously. Being intentional and teaching children how to memorize specific vocabulary words to describe the environment they’re in, helps children to understand what they are doing at a deeper level. Click here for a more in depth look at vocabulary words. Also, to learn how memorizing words while learning the alphabet makes learning how to read a breeze here.

  • Tell them the names of things that they are interacting with and touching. (Say, “You are holding a spoon. You put the spoon in the bowl to eat your soup. Good job using your spoon!”)
  • Vocabulary Posters: Put vocabulary posters on the wall at their eye level and up towards the ceiling. Encourage them to point to and interact with the posters. (Say, “Can you find the circle? What color is it? Let’s find the word wave. There it is! Can you wave your hand? Look, we are waving our hands!”)
  • Vocabulary Flashcards: Use flashcards to teach specific vocabulary words. Wait until they are fed and happy. (I usually give them food and snuggles while doing flashcards.) Know that their attention span will not be very long at first, but will gradually extend over time. As they become familiar with the flashcards, ask them, “What is this?” while pointing to the flashcard. Allow for a little wait time and say the answer if they don’t know it. If they say the wrong answer, tell them the right answer quickly and without any disappointment in your voice.
  • Vocabulary Videos: Use educational videos to reinforce vocabulary. Watch the videos with your child and interact by pointing out things you see and asking questions. Make a YouTube playlist so you can have educational videos ready to go when your child needs a little distraction. I have found that mealtimes are great for watching educational videos. (As children get older, I do like having conversations at mealtimes, but when they’re little, it’s too abstract, and I just want them to eat! We’ll save the conversation for playtime.)
vocabulary posters

Vocabulary Posters

2. Phonemic Awareness (The Alphabet)

Phonemes are the individual sounds in our language and phonemic awareness is being able to distinguish those sounds. There are 44 sounds in our English language, but to start with, children only need to learn one sound for each letter. I have found that if you teach children letter names and letter sounds really really really well, it makes learning how to read a breeze.

What Makes My Flashcards Different

There are many different features that set my flashcards apart from anything else I have been able to find on the market. When I was a 3rd and 4th grade teacher, I found that many students with reading difficulties lacked phonemic awareness (the ability to distinguish and identify all of the letter sounds). As a parent, I wanted to create something that would accurately teach my children the letter names and sounds giving them a strong foundation for learning how to read. These are the features that make my flashcards unique.

abc flashcard poster

ABC Flashcard Poster

  • They have both the upper and lower case letters on each card. This is so children can learn that they mean the same thing simultaneously.
  • Letters are shaped how we print them. I created my own font and made sure each letter was formed the way we teach children how to print them.
  • Each flashcard has a simple, interesting, and easily identifiable picture. Many flashcards use words like “ape” for “a” where kids might get confused thinking it was a monkey. I also tried to keep the images related to things children would be familiar with.
  • The letter and sound combination makes sense. When flashcards use the word “eye” to teach the letter “e” or the word “shoe” (which has a digraph) to teach “s”, it can be very confusing for children. My flashcards do not do this.
  • Short vowels and the hard g and c are used. When children are just starting to learn their letters, these are the easiest versions to begin with, and it’s best to keep things as simple as possible in the beginning.
  • There is a printed word below each picture. I have found that it’s important for children to learn that letters come together to form words and that words have meaning. When children memorize the shape of the letters, the image, and a word it really solidifies their understanding of the alphabet.

Tips and Tricks for Teaching the Alphabet

Follow these tips and tricks for teaching your child letter names and letter sounds and check out my blog to see my favorite ABC resources. Also, for a more in depth look at how learning the ABCs lays the foundation for learning how to read with tips and tricks as well as tons of free resources, check out my ABC blog here.

  • Start young! I started when my children were 6-8 months old, and it took until they were about 15 months old to show that they knew their letters. You want to at least start before children are 3-4 years old because that is when synaptic pruning occurs and the foundation for the brain has already been laid.
  • ABC Toys: Get ABC fridge magnets, foam bath letters, puzzles, and more so that your child can have fun playing with the letters. Talk about the letters and the sounds they make while playing.
  • ABC Posters: Use my posters to surround your child’s environment with the ABCs. Put posters on the wall in their room, by their bed, by the changing table, at their eye level, and near the ceiling. Interact with the posters by pointing to them and asking questions.
  • ABC Flashcards: Do flashcards when they are fed and happy. Ask them questions about the flashcards and give wait time. If they say the letter name, sound, or word for that letter, those are all the right answer! Use the chant, “A is for apple, a, a, apple, B is for ball, b, b, ball,” from my ABC Video.
  • ABC Video: Watch the video with your child until they are familiar with it. Interact with the video by pointing out things that you see and say the chant along with the video. Know that their attention span and love for the video will grow over time as they become familiar with it after repeated exposure.
  • Starfall: Starfall has so much of its content for free! I especially like the interactive alphabet resource.

3. Phonics (Sounding Out 3 Letter Words)

Phonics is understanding that letters make sounds and those sounds come together to make words. Once children are really really really familiar with letter names and sounds (one sound for each letter and short vowels for now), you can start showing them how to tap out sounds to make words. Sounding out words is also called decoding. Start with three letter word families, and when children are pretty comfortable decoding these words, you can start decoding four letter words and blends. I have found that 2.5-3.5 years of age is a pretty good time to start with these activities.

Word Families Poster Set 1 snip

Tips and Tricks for Decoding Three Letter Word Families

  • Muffin Tin and Magnet Letters: Flip over a 6 cup muffin tin and use magnet letters to spell three letter words. I really like this classroom magnet letter kit because the vowels are a different color than the consonants and there are multiple copies of each letter. Spell the word and point to each letter saying it’s sound, c-a-t, then slide your finger underneath all of the letters from beginning to end and say the word “cat”. Switch out the beginning sound to spell the next word in the word family.
  • Word Families Letters: I created these letters so that you wouldn’t have to buy the magnetic letters. I recommend sorting the letters according to the word families and storing them in small plastic baggies.
  • Word Families Flashcards: Use my flashcards as a guide while spelling three letter words or use them to help your child practice reading three letter words.
  • Word Families Videos: In my videos, Julian and I model several hands on strategies for learning three letter words such as writing words in shaving cream on a baking sheet or writing the words on the pavement using sidewalk chalk and jumping on them. Use letters to build words with us while you watch the video!
  • Coloring Over Words: Have your child watch you write three letter words and then have them color over your words. This is a really simple activity, but has profoundly helped some of my children (especially Julian) to become good readers.
  • Starfall’s Word Machine: Starfall is an amazing resource and a lot of the content is free! This three letter word machine activity is interactive and fun.

4. More Complex Phonemic Awareness

The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate all of the sounds the letters make is known as phonemic awareness. Each individual sound is called a phoneme, and we have 44 phonemes in the English language. After children have learned one sound for each letter of the alphabet, they are ready to start learning about the remaining sounds.

I have found that the best way to teach these sounds is to point them out while reading quality literature and to draw attention to the rules when your child struggles to sound out a new word. I also have flashcards, posters, and videos to help you teach your child these remaining sounds.

The Remaining Sounds

  • Long Vowels – In addition to teaching children about the 5 long vowel sounds, I also want to introduce them to common spelling patterns.

    long vowels flashcard poster snip

  • Digraphs – Digraphs are two letters that come together to form one single sound.

    digraphs flashcard poster snip

    Digraphs Flashcard Poster

  • Other Vowel Sounds
    • R Controlled Vowels – When a vowel is followed by an r, it makes a different sound.
    • Long and Short oo (Vowel Digraphs – Two vowels that come together to make one sound.) – The oo in moon is long, and the oo in  book is short.
    • Diphthongs – These gliding vowels start with the sound of the first letter and glide to the next.

      other vowel sounds flashcards poster

      Other Vowel Sounds Flashcard Poster

  • *Consonants with More Than One Sound – Although children may be familiar with the other sounds these letters make, it is a tricky concept that some consonants make more than one sound, so I have included it here, but feel free to introduce this concept earlier or later based on the interest and needs of your child.

    Complex Consonants Flashcard Poster

    Complex Consonants Flashcard Poster

5. Reading Comprehension Strategies

Create a love of reading with quality literature, interact with books, and ask questions before, during, and after reading. Click here to learn more about how to support your child’s understanding of reading comprehension strategies here. Also, connecting reading with writing will continue to increase your child’s ability to read.

  1. Read Words and Sentences with Quality Books: Point to words you are reading so children can learn one-to-one matching. Leave off the last word (or a word your child may know) and pause asking, “What’s this word?” Do this with increasing frequency until your child is able to read full sentences. Gradually release the responsibility of reading to your child when they are ready; don’t force it!
  2. Ask Questions Before, During, and After Reading: Start with simple questions like, “What color is that? How many do you see? Can you point to the _____?” Then progress to questions like, “What lesson did the main character learn? Did you like that story? Why or why not? Did you ever feel like the character? What if that happened in your life, what would you do?”
  3. Independent Readers: Once children have all of the skills needed to read, it’s time to set them loose! Teach them how to use the library to find books that match their interests and go often! Do whatever it takes to help your child develop a love of reading.
  4. Don’t Stop Reading with Your Child: Once your child become an independent readers, make sure you still find time to cuddle up and read! Read picture books, nonfiction books, chapter books, and more together. Listen to books on tape, research their interests on the internet, follow recipes together, and more. Make reading fun!

My Testimonial

With each of my children, I created a language rich environment at a young age with lots of opportunities for oral language development. I started introducing flashcards and videos for first words, colors, shapes, numbers, and the ABCs starting when they were about 6-8 months old. I did a little bit over a long period of time. Sometimes months would go by and we wouldn’t do anything but play and read books. When they were between 2.5-3.5 years old I started teaching them how to sound out three letter words.

After that, I started pointing out the remaining sounds (long vowels, digraphs, other vowel sounds) while reading quality literature whenever they would stumble over a new word. All along the way we have LOVED going to the library, checking out stacks of books, and reading together. When we read together, we are always discussing the books we read (what we liked and didn’t like, what was funny, how we can relate, etc.) and asking questions before, during, and after reading.

Now, my oldest daughter is in 5th grade and testing at a 13th grade level in reading, my oldest son (who I didn’t actually start doing flashcards with until he was 3 almost 4) is reading at a 6th grade level in 3rd grade, my 1st grade daughter is reading chapter books, my preschool son loves reading any level of picture books, and my 2.5 year old son knows all of his letter names and sounds, colors, shapes, numbers, first words, and is starting to sound out words and reads new words all of the time including signs and people’s names. Here’s a video of me taking turns reading with 2 year old Ophelia.

In Conclusion

As a 3rd and 4th grade teacher and ESL coach/teacher, I saw many many struggling readers. Even though my team and I worked tirelessly to help our most struggling readers advance often with two or more years of growth, it was still not enough to bring ALL students to proficiency. Today, there seems to be a bit of an epidemic where only 35% of 4th graders are proficient according to nationwide tests. and many states are passing laws to retain students not reading at grade level by the end of 3rd grade.

Now that I’ve seen from a parent’s perspective just how easy it is to teach children how to read, I am hoping to share what I’ve learned and created to help other parents (or teachers) who want to to teach their children how to read. By providing a language rich environment filled with lots of oral language and vocabulary development, teaching the ABCs really really well, making reading fun and reading often, teaching how to sound out three letter words, and introducing them to long vowels, r controlled vowels, and vowel digraphs, children can learn how to read easily and naturally the way my own five children have. Please use, share, and enjoy my free reading resources as you teach your child to read! Have fun reading!

More Videos of Our Kids Reading

3 Year Old Ophelia Reads Ranger Rick

4 Year Old Ophelia Reads Flat Stanley

3 Year Old Ruby Reads to Elliot

 

4 Year Old Ruby Reading About White Blood Cells

5 Year Old Ruby Reading a Chapter Book

6 Year Old Ruby Reading Little Women

5 Year Old Elliot Reading That is Not a Good Idea by Mo Williams

6 Year Old Elliot Reads Captain Underpants

Reading with 18 Month Old Julian

20 Month Old Julian Oral Language Development

21 Month Julian Looking Through His Books

For More Information

You’ll find everything you need to teach your child to read on my teacher’s pay teacher’s store that has flashcards, videos, posters, and more! If you’d like a more in depth explanation for how to teach your child to read, please check out the following 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
February 11, 2020/by Stacey Maaser
https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/teach-your-child-to-read-in-5-steps.png 400 810 Stacey Maaser https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EM_Logo.png Stacey Maaser2020-02-11 15:25:472024-06-06 14:25:51Teach Your Child to Read in 5 Simple Steps

How Children Really Learn to Read…in 10 Steps

General, Reading, Teaching

When should children learn how to read? Do we have to teach children how to read or does it just happen on it’s own? Why do some children struggle with reading? What can I do to help my child learn how to read?

The U.S. Department of Education would have you believe that learning to read is rocket science, which makes it sound extremely complex and like something that should only be left to trained professionals. As a former elementary school educator for seven years with a Master’s degree focused on Linguistics, I almost believed this to be true. But then I had my five children, and after following these 10 steps, I saw them all learn how to read from a very young age, much like the Finnish children do which is “as if by chance”.

So without further adieu, here are the 10 steps that I have found which have led my children to reading. (And click here to see the resources I created to help me do so.)

1. Make Them Feel Safe and Loved

This may sound like a strange first step for learning how to read, but it is the most important aspect of human development. I know that against all odds, there are many who have succeeded even when they have been raised in the most unfortunate of circumstances, but the best environment for a child to thrive is one in which his or her basic needs are all being met and where he or she is shrouded in love.

Ophelia Reading with Great Grandma Gene

Ophelia Reading with Great Grandma Gene

Children who are noticed, children who come first, children who matter, and children who are loved will be able to reach their own personal best in whatever areas they are so inclined to grow.

2. Provide a Language Rich Environment

When adults realize that children are blank little slates who know nothing about the world or the things in it, and then take the time to talk to them and show them all of the little things that they see and interact with, it helps their oral language development to flourish and grow thus providing them with a rich foundation of vocabulary.Add-subtitle-text-3

When little babies sit in the grass across from their parents, rolling a ball back and forth for the first time, they don’t know what a ball is, what it means to roll, to throw, or to catch. They don’t know what colors are or that the little blades poking their legs are called grass…they don’t know that the sound they hear is a bird chirping or that the tall green thing next to them is a tree. They don’t know about clouds, or wind, or sun, or rain…these are all things that they must learn, and the more we talk to them and the more they hear these words repeated over and over and over again, the sooner they’ll learn the names of the things in their little worlds and their worlds will get bigger.

Research shows that a child’s vocabulary is correlated with reading comprehension in upper elementary school and that children who enter school with limited vocabulary knowledge fall further and further behind as compared with students who have rich vocabulary knowledge. Children who enter first grade as linguistically rich will know 20,000 words and children who are linguistically poor will only know 5,000.

When children have a rich vocabulary based on experiences, this is known as background knowledge, and is a key piece of learning how to read.

3. Sing Songs and Nursery Rhymes to Build Vocabulary

Another aspect of language and vocabulary development occurs when children memorize songs and nursery rhymes. As children’s brains are growing, whatever is repeated over and over and over again will strengthen the neural pathways and lay the foundation for further brain development. Neurons that are used will remain; neurons that are not used will die. Starting at about 6 months, you’ll notice an explosion of neural connections which will reach its peak when children are between the ages of 2 and 3. By age 4, synaptic pruning begins. You want to lay the foundation BEFORE this happens and what better way to do it than with songs and nursery rhymes.

synaptic pruning

Not only are songs structured in a way that is predictable and patterned, but singing them is enjoyable and therefore, we do it a lot. It is this repetition that helps us commit what we sing to long term memory. Check out my YouTube playlist of favorite nursery rhymes here. Here’s another playlist of all of my favorite preschool songs and another one just for the ABCs. The standard Mother Goose Nursery rhyme book is good too.

With my children, I love making up songs about everything all the time! I have songs about how much I love them, songs about waking up in the mornings, a song before we go to bed, songs about getting dressed or getting in the van…and they LOVE it! It’s absolutely fascinating to me that our youngest son, who is 20 months and still developing his ability to communicate using complete sentences, yet can sing all of the words to his favorite songs and nursery rhymes.

4. Foster a Relationship with Books

Reading is so much more than just words on a page. It’s a feeling, it’s an expression, and it’s a whole new world that can be discovered just by turning a page. By building a foundation of reading that is based on bonding and love, your child will grow up having positive associations with reading that will motivate him to peruse reading on his own…not just when it’s “reading time”.

Reading with Julian in My Comfy Rocking Chair

Reading with Julian in My Comfy Rocking Chair

This is why I love creating reading routines that are just part of our day. When my babies are little, I have nursing stations set up around the house with my comfy rocking chair and a table nearby for water, burp towels, and anything else I might need. When my babies are ready (usually around 6-8 months), I start keeping little baskets of books nearby too. I love reading before bed, when they wake up in the morning, before naps, or anytime we’re just cuddled up and rocking together.

While this early reading is going on, children are learning about some very important pre-reading skills such as how to hold a book, how we read from left to right, how we turn pages, how books have a beginning and an end, and how words are used to represent pictures on the page. Check out my blogs: How to Engage Your Baby with Reading and Best Books for Babies for more ideas on reading with babies.

Throughout the entire process of learning how to read, this step remains crucial. We need to find the time in our busy lives and in our busy days to read often. We need to build libraries of books, use reading as part of our routines so that it doesn’t get missed, make reading fun, and make reading about snuggling up in the arms of someone you love to explore something new. As your children grow and changes, find out what engages and excites them, and continue to look for new books that they will like.

4. Pre-Reading Skills are Very Important

Instead of listing these each of these separately, I wanted to lump them together to emphasize that they are best taught simultaneously, but each one is of vital importance. In fact, without these skills, children will struggle as readers for their whole lives, but with a solid foundation in them, they will learn to read from a young age “as if by chance”. When my children are about 6-8 months old, I have found that this is the optimum time to start teaching them these skills.

Ophelia Fridge Letters

Ophelia (2) Fridge Letters

  • Words Have Meaning: Before children start learning about the alphabet, they need to know what the alphabet is used for, and they need to see that words have meaning. I learned about this valuable skill when our first born daughter was 6 months old and we started watching Your Baby Can Read videos together. It took awhile for her to master the first batch of words, and she didn’t really start articulating her understanding of them until about 12 months of age, but once she did, her word memorization skills cascaded like a waterfall. (I have created my own resources to teach children how to memorize words here.) I have also loved using books like this – Hinkler First Words to teach my babies that words represent things.
  • Letter Names: Teaching letter names is where it all begins. Learning uppercase letters is in some ways easier because they are more distinct and easier to differentiate, but children will encounter the lowercase letters more often, and so I like to teach them simultaneously. In the English language, we have 26 letter names that children must learn, which is a pretty straightforward process that simply requires repeated exposure and rote memorization.
  • Letter Sounds: Learning the letter sounds is a bit more tricky because while we may only have 26 letters, they make up 44 different sounds. Being able to understand and recognize the different sounds in a language is called phonemic awareness. (So it’s really more auditory than visual.) When children are learning their letter sounds, I have found that it’s best to work in layers. First teach the consonants (using the hard c and g) and short vowels. After these are mastered, you can start getting into more complex letter sounds such as long vowels (and all of the different ways they are represented…starting with the most basic), digraphs (two letters that come together to make a single sound like the /ph/ sound in “phone”) and dipthongs (vowel combinations where neither vowel sound is heard such as in the words “coin” and “moon”).

5. Decoding Three Letter Words

Learning how to decode three letter words is where the true act of reading begins. When children can look at the word “cat” and are able to isolate the individual sounds that each of the letters make, “/c/-/a/-/t/” and then blend those sounds together, “c-a-t”, to make the word “cat” this is what is known as phonics.

Ophelia and Elliot Spell Words

Ophelia and Elliot Spell Words

Children are ready to embark on the journey of learning three letter words once they have completely mastered their letter names and letter sounds. If you push them into decoding too soon, they will get frustrated, lose confidence, and possibly hate reading forever. Okay, maybe it won’t be that severe, but it’s much much better and way more effective to wait until they are ready.

One of my favorite tools for teaching three letter words is Starfall’s Word Machines. (Watch a little video of us using it here.) This is a really fun and cute way for children to become familiar with decoding three letter words. After that, I love using a muffin tin like this and some foam letters like these to teach word families. It’s best to first start with three letter words before branching out to words with four letters or more. Read more about this process in my blog: Using Magnet Letters to Teach the ABCs.

I wouldn’t have realized that this step was so important unless I had seen it with my own eyes with all of my children. It’s like once they figure out this step, the floodgates open and they start reading more and more words at an increasingly rapid rate. (Read more about teaching three letter words here.

6. Memorizing Words with Repeated Reading

Once a children have sounded out the word “c-a-t” many many times, they eventually will just know that this is the word “cat”, and they won’t have to sound it out anymore. Children can also just memorize words that they encounter often without ever learning how to sound them out at all.daddy reading with elliot

The more children are read to and the more that they “read”, the more they will be exposed to words over and over and over again which will help commit them to long term memory. Going back to the brain development I discussed in the songs and nursery rhymes session, it is this repeated reading that will help children commit words to their long term memory.

When you think about how you read as an adult, especially when you encounter a slightly challenging text like a college textbook, think about how you read, and in particular, notice how you read when you come to a word you don’t know. Many times, we simply see the beginning and ending letters of a word and this leads to recognition, that’s why we can still read and make sense of a paragraph like this. Other times, we will rely on a plethora of other skills (not just decoding) to figure out a new word such as our background knowledge, context clues, and looking at the structure of the word (i.e. root words, syllables, etc.).

In the primary grades, there is a HUGE emphasis on teaching phonics, as if learning every single rule of the English language is the true key to learning how to read, but the reality with all of these phonics lessons is that while they are really good for helping children learn how to spell, they are not a crucial component of learning how to read. In fact, a meta-analysis of 71 intervention control groups looked at the long term effects of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and reading comprehension interventions and found that phonemic awareness and comprehension interventions made a difference whereas phonics and fluency interventions did not.

As a teacher, but mostly as a parent, I have been enlightened as to what learning truly is and is not.

Learning isn’t about memorizing a series of facts and rules. Learning is about creating meaning. True long term learning occurs when something is so entertaining, so engaging, and so useful, that the repetition needed to commit it to long term memory seems effortless.

7. The Different Stages of Reading

There is a progression of reading that children will go through at different ages based on a variety of factors. You might just notice your children are going through each of these stages on their own, or you might see that they need a little nudge and some guidance in getting to the next stage.

  • Picture Reading: This is basically where children flip through the pages of the book and just talk about whatever is seen in the pictures. You can read to your children this way to teach them what picture reading is like or you might just observe them doing it. This was something our daughter Ophelia would do on her own starting at about a year and a half. After watching Dora programs, she LOVED all of the Dora books and would flip through all of the pages saying words that she knew. With our son Elliot, who wasn’t quite as interested in books, I would encourage him to read picture books like this and this and this because he was ready to “read”, but not quite ready to tackle the words on the page.
  • Repeated Reading: When you read books over and over and over with your children, especially really good interactive books where they can lift the flaps and such, you’ll probably fall into some patterns based on what entertains them. For example, if there’s an animal, you might ask what the animal says, or if there’s a rhyming word, you might pause to let them fill in the blank. By having these predictable routines, your child will love anticipating his or her participation.
  • Reading Single Word Books: This is an excellent way for children to memorize words that will help them read while letting them practice their reading skills. Sometimes, word books can get very busy making you think you’re getting a better value because in 10 pages, they cover 100 words, but trust me, less is more. I absolutely love the simplicity of these Hinkler First Word books and how they keep it simple with just one picture and one word per page.
  • Reading Sentences: Once children are out of the baby stage and have a good foundation of basic reading skills, they will love reading books with simple sentences. Gone are the Dick and Jane books of the past, today’s easy readers are Mo Williams books! One of our favorites is this, but we try to buy as many as we can because every single one is pure gold.
  • Reading Books of Interest: Teach your children how to find books that they like at the library and even on Amazon. Organize your books at home using bookshelves and baskets of books so that your children can easily find new books that peak their interest. They might choose books that are too hard and just look at the pictures, they may select all of the baby books they enjoyed reading over and over with you from long ago, or they might discover a new genre that they can read on their own.
  • Reading to Comprehend: There are a variety of comprehension strategies that you can engage your children with as they become more accomplished readers, and I explain these more in detail in my blog: How to Teach Reading Comprehension. One of the best ways to help your children with their comprehension skills is simply to talk about the books they are reading. You might want to read the same book as they are or read together so you know what the story is about, but sometimes it’s fun when you don’t know what the book is about and they have to tell you as much as they can.

8. Let Children Progress At Their Own Rate

By going through this progression, three out of four of our children have become very early readers (before the age of two), but one of our children only started reading recently at the age of 5. Now, this may be due to the fact that we skipped the memorizing words stage with him (due to the fact that we were in the middle of a huge life transition at the time…see my blog: How I Became a Stay at Home Mom) or it could just be that due to his personality, he wasn’t interested in learning until now.

At any rate, I believe strongly in letting each of our children develop at their own rate and according to their individual interests. My strongest teaching philosophy is rooted in the zone of proximal development that encourages teachers to continuously provide students with learning opportunities that are not too challenging, but just challenging enough, and then providing scaffolding as they learn the new idea or skill until they can do it on their own. In this manner, I am always creating learning goals for all of my children that helps me to meet them right where they are.

Learning how to read is not a race, and nobody is going to give you an award for being the best parent just because your child reads at a young age. BUT, when you place these pre-reading tools in front of an eager learner, and they POUNCE on them, it seems almost cruel to think our society would have us wait until they are in school to begin reading.

9. Encourage Your Child to Ask for Help

This is a reading comprehension strategy known in the teaching world as “Monitor and Clarify” meaning that good readers know how to monitor their reading to make sure that they are understanding what is being read and working to clarify anything that they don’t understand.

When I was a teacher, I designed many lessons to teach this concept, but it wasn’t until I read with my children, side by side, every day, that I truly grasped the importance and the organic nature of this process. Every night as part of our bedtime routine, I read with our oldest daughter Ruby (currently 6). She has a HUGE stack of chapter books she keeps in her bed next to her little nightlight, and every night we cuddle up and she reads to me for 10-20 minutes any book of her choosing. As she reads aloud to me, she’ll pause at a word that she doesn’t understand to say, “What does this word mean Mom?” I never taught her how to “Monitor and Clarify”, and yet somehow she just does it.

How? Well, when she asks me a question, I answer it. I don’t put it back on her and say, “What do you think it means?” or “Let’s look at the context clues to figure this out.” Yuck. No thanks. When Ruby asks me the meaning of a word, I simply tell her, and we move on. When she struggles to correctly pronounce a word, I quickly read it for her, and she doesn’t skip a beat. There is this misconception that we need to let our children struggle in order to learn, and I disagree. What typically happens after I tell her the meaning of a word is that she knows what that word means and she applies that knowledge the next time she encounters the word or phrase in question. If she somehow can’t remember and asks for help again, I’ll simply tell her again…just like that.

10. Become a Family Who Reads

Both my husband and I love reading. Our children know this, our children see this, and they know we are a family of readers. Our house is FULL of books, and we have bookshelves and baskets of books in every room. We read books every night before we go to bed, we cuddle up and read throughout the day, we listen to books on tape, we go to the library and get as many books as they’ll let us check out, we pay regular library fines for late books, and we don’t even mind, we have book wishlists on Amazon for ourselves and for every child, and we buy books to add to our library for birthdays, Christmas, from the tooth fairy, and anytime there’s a really good book that we just have to have.

When you become a family of readers, your children will become readers. When you teach your children not only how to read, but how to access books (from your home library, from the public library, and from Amazon), they will become masters of their own destiny. Instead of going to you like an empty vessel waiting to be filled, they can fill their own tanks with whatever knowledge they desire. Here’s what I mean…

When we found out we were pregnant for baby #5, our daughter Ruby went straight to our Basher Books collection (an EXCELLENT source for teaching young children higher level concepts…we have purchased just about every single one), and read the book about the human body. She came to me later and said,

“Mom, did you know it’s really up to dad if our baby becomes a boy or girl because he’s the one who carries the x or the y chromosome?”

And that’s what I’m talking about folks! This is what reading is all about. It’s not about reading early or getting high grades, and it’s not about becoming proficient or advanced or reading the right number of words a minute. Reading is about unlocking the world around you, discovering new things, exploring new ideas, getting lost in another world, and having access to all of the knowledge that the world has to offer.

In Conclusion

Learning how to read is not rocket science, it is not something that should wait until formal schooling to be learned, and it does not need to be taught by a trained professional. In fact, very little “teaching” is actually needed in order to lead children to reading. What is needed is an environment conducive to reading, deliberate exposure to word recognition, letter names, and letter sounds, guidance in discovering the structure

By creating an environment conducive to reading and by building a foundation of some key basic skills, children can learn to read “as if by chance” and in the process unlock an entire world that is just resting at their fingertips. Check out my teacher’s pay teacher’s store to help you teach your child to read.

Happy reading!

Videos of Our Kids Reading

  • Reading with Julian 18 months. Notice how much he interacts with the books I am reading. These are some of his favorites that we read all the time.
  • Ophelia reading at 2.5. Ophelia started reading from a VERY young age, and it really blew our minds!
  • Elliot reading some Mo Williams at age 5. Elliot started reading on his own fairly recently, and he is so proud! He has a nightlight by his bed, and we hear him over his monitor reading to himself every night.
  • Ruby reads The Princess in Black at age 6. Ruby start reading at a VERY young age like Ophelia and absolutely LOVES reading!
  • Here’s a playlist of our kids learning how to read over the years. *Showing children videos of other kids reading can be a great way to get them motivated to read!
June 28, 2018/by Stacey Maaser
https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/how-children-really-learn-to-read-2.jpg 400 810 Stacey Maaser https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EM_Logo.png Stacey Maaser2018-06-28 09:45:142024-06-12 01:03:03How Children Really Learn to Read…in 10 Steps

Everything You Need to Know to Teach Your Child to Read at a Young Age

General, Teach Your Child to Read, Teaching
Teach Your Child to Read by Age 3: A Free Reading Program

How DO children learn to read? While raising my own five children, I learned…no, I discovered, that children can learn how to read EASILY, naturally, and well before they enter kindergarten or even preschool.

Because I started when my children were young (like 6-8 months), created a language rich environment with lots of oral language and vocabulary development including memorizing words, taught letter names and sounds (phonemic awareness) really really well, and eventually taught them how to sound out three letter word families (phonics) and pointed out more complex sounds while reading and interacting with quality literature, three of my children were reading by age 3, and two of my children (who were more reluctant to read) were reading by the age of 4-5.

Reading with 3 Month Old Jack

Reading with 3 Month Old Jack

Read a shorter version of this information in my blog: How to Teach Your Child to Read in 5 Simple Steps, or follow my Teach Your Child to Read blog series for a more in depth synopsis. This blog gives a summary of all blogs in this series.

Check out all of the blogs in my Teach Your Child to Read blog series:

  • #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

#1-Oral Language Development Lays the Foundation for Learning to Read

When newborns arrive into the world, everything is new, and they need to be protected and sheltered as if they were in the womb. But then, starting at about 6-8 weeks when their brains have adjusted to this new outside world, they start to become responsive and crave human eye contact and interaction. This is where language begins. (Read about the importance of baby conversations at this stage.)

#1-Oral Language Development Lays the Foundation for Reading

#1-Oral Language Development Lays the Foundation for Learning to Read

#2-How Engage Your Baby or Young Child with Reading

By the time babies are 3-4 months, they can hold their heads up, grab things, follow a moving object, and are more interested in shapes and patterns. This is the perfect time to start reading to your baby. Read my blog: How to Introduce Reading to Your Baby to see my tips for introducing reading to your baby as well as my favorite first books to read with babies.

how to engage your baby with reading

#3-Learning How to Read Begins with the ABCs

Everyone knows that learning the ABCs is a crucial part of learning how to read, but did you know that children are totally capable of learning letter names and sounds by the time they are 15 months old? Why are we forcing children to wait until they are school aged when they WANT to learn earlier? The alphabet contains the building blocks of language, and when you teach babies starting at 6-8 months of age what this code means, their brains will weave this knowledge into its frameworks instead of trying to find a place to force it in later.

I have spent the last two years hand drawing my own font and creating flashcards, posters, a video, and an app (well, my husband made that) that will teach children the alphabet completely and thoroughly. Trust me, there is nothing else out in the market like this, and this is the reason why I was compelled to made it. So, check out my blog: Learning the Alphabet Lays the Foundation for Reading and you can have free access to all of my resources, plus tips on teaching the alphabet, and additional resources that will make it SO EASY to teach your baby (or child of any age) the ABCs.

Learning the Alphabet is the Foundation of Reading

#4-How Memorizing Words Before Sounding Them Out Leads to Reading

People are always blown away when my little ones can read words while they are learning how to speak them. Teaching children how to memorize words (starting at 6-8 months to be proficient by 12-15 months) as their oral language is developing is a perfect fit. This is a VERY important step in teaching children how to read and is missing from every existing reading program out there. Some programs teach children sight words, but I am not talking about sight words here. I am talking about teaching children that letters are used to form written words, that these written words have meaning, and that they can communicate with these written words.

I have carefully selected the words that I use in my flashcards, posters, video, and app to be meaningful to children. Check out my blog: Memorizing Words is What Good Readers Do to learn more about the reasons why memorizing words is such a crucial part of learning how to read and to get teaching tips, all of my resources for free, and recommendations for additional resources that will help you to easily teach your child to memorize words.

memorizing words is what good readers do

#5-Building Vocabulary with Numbers, Colors, and Shapes

Children are naturally curious about the world around them. They want to explore, make a mess, figure out what everything is, see how things work, and learn what everything is called. As parents, we are their guides to this world, and the best way to teach them about it is to follow their lead and explain whatever they are holding and whatever they are interested in. In doing so, we are building their background knowledge which will aid tremendously in their reading comprehension abilities.

In these vocabulary resources, I have focused on creating materials that will help children learn colors, numbers, and shapes because these are as fundamental and foundational as learning the ABCs. Everything children learn is in layers, and if they can start at the bottom and work their way up in complexity, everything will stay in their zone of proximal development and be retained. Read my blog: Building Vocabulary with Colors, Numbers, and Shapes to get access to my flashcards, books, links to additional resources, and tips for helping children develop background knowledge.

Building Vocabulary with Colors, Numbers, and Shapes (Part 4 in a Teach Your Child to Read Series)

Building Vocabulary with Colors, Numbers, and Shapes (Part 4 in a Teach Your Child to Read Series)

#6-Teaching Phonics with Three Letter Word Families

Each letter has a name, each letter makes a sound, and when we put those sounds together we make words. This is phonics. After children are familiar with letter names, letter sounds, memorizing words, vocabulary, and phonemic awareness, they are ready to start building words. In most cases, children don’t start to learn about phonics until they are in school, and then they spend a LOT of time going over every possible way to spell words with a plethora of worksheets.

What I have found, is that by keeping the focus extremely basic (by just teaching three letter word families with short vowel sounds) that children will get the basic concept and be able to apply it to new words on their own. This is the Helen Keller water scene moment for children where they finally see how all of the pieces are connected and reading begins to occur “as if by magic”. Check out my blog: Teaching Phonics with Three Letter Words to have access to all of my resources and recommendations for teaching phonics.

Teaching Phonics with Three Letter Words

#7-Unlock the Final Stages of Reading with Advanced Phonemic Awareness

Studies show that, “The two best predictors of early reading success are alphabet recognition and phonemic awareness“. But what is phonemic awareness?  Rooted in oral language, phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate all of the sounds that the letters make. (There are 44 sounds in the English language; each sound is called a phoneme.) The first 26 sounds are fairly easy because they are directly correlated with the alphabet. (When first teaching the ABCs, I recommend starting with the short vowel sounds.) The next 18 are a bit tricky.

In my blog: Phonemic Awareness Leads to Reading Success, I share resources that I have made to teach children (and adults) about the common spelling patterns used to make long vowels, other vowel sounds such as the long and short oo, r controlled vowels, and diphthongs, as well as digraphs.

Teaching Phonemic Awareness through Quality Literature

#8-Reading Comprehension Strategies Lead to Independent Readers

Reading is awesome. I love reading, and I love sharing my love of reading with my children. These days, I’m primarily into reading nonfiction research pertaining to blog topics that I want to write about. When my kids see me reading, I tell them what I’m reading and what I’m learning. My husband does the same thing. He’s very techy and is currently learning about programming. Not only does he share this knowledge with them, but he’s teaching them about programming as well. He also really loves fiction and reads his favorite Illustrated Classics with the older kids before bed every night.

I want our children to see our passions, to see how we learn, and to see our reasoning and thought processes for choosing what we do, not so that they can learn about the same things, but so they can follow their OWN passions. In my blog: Encouraging Children to Read Independently, I share my tips for creating a reading environment, tips on encouraging children to read independently, and my favorite reading resources for children of all ages.

Encouraging Children to Read Independently

#8. Reinforcing Reading with Writing

When children are in kindergarten and preschool, they are taught to write letters WHILE they are learning how to read them. That is a LOT to do at once. Not only that, but the pace moves quickly and sequentially. If children learn letter names and letter sounds BEFORE they are introduced to writing, then they can just focus on writing and use it as a vehicle to reinforce what they learned about reading. Writing takes a lot of dexterity and fine motor control, and it’s not feasible to teach children how to write when they are babies like it is to teach them how to read.

That being said, there are things that you can do with children at a young age to prepare them for writing when they are ready. In my blog, Reinforcing Reading with Writing, I share my resources that will help prepare children for writing in addition to my favorite writing resources that will make learning how to write easy and fun.

Reinforcing Reading With Writing

In Conclusion

There is a magic window to teach your child how to read between the ages of 6 months and 3 years of age. During this time, the brain is laying its foundation based on experiences and interactions. If we take advantage of this window and teach children the letter names and sounds, how to memorize words, vocabulary, phonemic awareness, how to sound out three letter words and do so through quality literature, then learning how to read will come easily and occur naturally “as if by magic”. When we start pre-reading activities with our children when they are very young, the lessons can be simple, sparse, and short. Spreading a little out over a long period of time is a much easier approach than waiting until they are older and cramming in a lot over a short period of time.

But even if you haven’t started with your child at a young age, it’s not too late. You may have to work a little harder to make these steps exciting and engaging for an older child, but rest assured that if you follow this process, your child will learn how to read. By presenting children with the gift of reading, not only will they have complete access to the world around them, but they will be able to follow their own passions, read about their own interests, and go farther than you could have ever possibly imagined.

Check out all of the blogs in my Teach Your Child to Read blog series:

  • #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
Scott Reading with Ophelia

Scott Reading with Ophelia

 

July 28, 2017/by Stacey Maaser
https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/teach-your-child-to-read-by-age-3.png 400 810 Stacey Maaser https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EM_Logo.png Stacey Maaser2017-07-28 11:00:162024-06-16 07:50:47Everything You Need to Know to Teach Your Child to Read at a Young Age

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Stacey Maaser

Stacey Maaser author of Embracing Motherhood

Author of Embracing Motherhood

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Hi, I’m Stacey Maaser,

author of Embracing Motherhood! I am a stay at home mother of 5 with 7 years of teaching experience and a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction. I am passionate about teaching my children, feeding them healthy food, learning the truth about things (not just what is popular opinion or counter culture), and sharing what I’ve learned and experienced with others. Thanks for stopping by!

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