How do you/did you teach your child to read?

jettagurl

Ben is so eager, but apparently I have no clue how to do this.  

He got several of the Learn-to-Read books for Christmas, but he's memorizing them, not really learning how to read them. (Not that I thought it would happen 'overnight', either, he has several that he had memorized previously.)

Flash cards? Buying "My Baby Can Read" (ha, joking) What?  

Help, please. 

goodheartedmommy

Does he know his letter sounds? I found it easier to teach him to read one word at a time (like those baby books that have one word and a picture) so he could get the hang of it without being overwhelmed or distracted by all the words at once. Then we moved on to stories. He has a big interest in sounding out words, so that helps. Everywhere we go, he sounds out and tries to spell anything we see. Do you have a parent-teacher store near you? They have a lot of good books that they can write in that teach phonics, but they're fun. I also have some of the "Big Preschool Workbook" and kindergarten ones and such. Check out their website: https://www.schoolzone.com/workbooks/big-preschool-workbook?gclid=CJ251vfJjKYCFRRKgwodVSZhpg Target sells some of their books, too. The readiness basics super scholar book is really good, but of course none of these are good if your child isn't interested. Ethan loves them, so they work.

goodheartedmommy

Oh, and starfall, if you haven't tried it yet. That's how Bella has learned a lot of her letter sounds.

juniper19

Memorizing is actually an important first step to learning to read.  Have him point to each word as he's reading the books he has memorized.  If he doesn't know the words, you should point to each word as he reads it. 

AnnapolisLari

Memeorizing is part of learning how to read. He's learning that the words printed on the page have meaning, and aren't just part of the pictures.

Sit down with him and slow him down-- put his finger under each word as he says it.

Look at individual words and sound them out.

Don't push him too hard.

Halo79RN

ditto pp.... memorization is part of the process.  also learning letter sounds.  my dd learned her letters and letter sounds first....  then started memorizing stories.  and now putting letters together or sounding them out.  this is over a couple of years.  she's been working on sight words in prek.  she's one of a small group of the class they felt was ready for kindie work and are working on it for a small part of their day.  she gets letters and sight word flash cards in her homework folder. she has a blast putting the letters together to make up words and putting the words together to form sentences.  we read a lot too.  now when we read, if she is interested, I'll let her sound out each word in a sentence.... then at the end, I'll read the sentence smoothly so she can hear it all together.  we'll go through entire books like this. it takes a while . lol 

ali-1411

Ditto the others - let him memorize.

DS didn't really learn to read until first grade.  And now in 3rd grade he's at an above-average reading level.  

Don't push him too hard, keep it fun.

Blair11884

My ds has been reading since the summer and he just turned 5. But he is in private school where they use the ABEKA program and teach letter sounds starting at 2 and 3 years old.  What helped us really take off was to focus not only on letter sounds, but also on letter blends.  Like ma, me, mi, mo, mu.  Of course these are taught after the vowel sounds.  A great place to look for material would be a teacher's supply shop.  Our local shop has plenty of material to encourage the little ones to read.  Good Luck!

Halo79RN

ali-1411:

 

Don't push him too hard, keep it fun.

yes! 

jlw2505

I think it is more of a slow process.  the first thing is to learn letters and sounds.  Memorizing books is actually part of the process of learning to read.  My 4 1/2 year old has been working hard on writing her letters and can now pretty much write her alaphabet (many letters are backwards but its a start).  She has a severe speech delay so she is still working on the sounds of the letters but once she gets the sounds down, we will begin working on putting the sounds of more than 1 letter together.  In the meantime, we read a ton of books to her all the time and we spend a lot of time on the books that are geared towards first readers so they have a lot of smaller words and rhymes.

KristinElaine

If you're not opposed to watching videos leap frog's letter factory is awesome at teaching letter sounds. My son is only two but he says a word and tells me what letter it starts with after only seeing the video a couple of times. I believe they have another one about words too.

lsufan

We have the first couple of sets of Bob books, and Evan really likes them.  I was surprised at how quickly he was sounding out the words.  We worked on letter sounds way before that, though.

Hooray2005

Great website for info/ideas

https://www.readingrockets.org