Few things are as rewarding as teaching your child to read but there is much debate about when the best time to teach reading is. Long after teaching of all of our children to read at an early age, I came across the recommendation that formal instruction not even begin until age 8 to 10. Experience shows, however, that as long as it is not forced, rushed or constrained, an early introduction to reading concepts can be an exciting family adventure.
Learning to read is a process with no set time frame for success but beginning between 18 months and 3 years old, could be an advantage. An early start gives parent and child plenty of time to learn to work together. You both can be free from pressure to perform. For the most part, our society does not expect a child to be reading before 5 or 6 years old. So, if you begin before then, you should be able to introduce steps in the reading process in a fun way, rather than seeing them as something that must be mastered tomorrow.
Through the homeschooling years, be sure to build a love for reading, by reading to your child often. Below is the method that was used to help our children begin to read. If you’d like to try it with your child, just remember that individual results may vary. Have fun and go slowly enough to enjoy the sights and sounds on the road to reading.
The first step in reading instruction is teaching the alphabet. The goal should be to teach your child how to recognize the letters of the alphabet by sight, not to sing the alphabet song. Many children think LMNOP is the name of a single letter because of the song. You child will be able to understand what he is singing if he learns it after he can differentiate between letters.
The software program called “ABC Kid Genius” is a great tool for letter recognition (you can download the free basic program at www.kidgen.net). If your child likes it as much as ours did, he may push a button on the keyboard to make it play again. That’s fine (but you don’t have to make him sit there through more than one playback). After playing through the letters once you can let him watch Sesame Street or a similar show that presents letters, if you like. Then, go about your day! Too much instruction at this point can dull a child’s enthusiasm.
Play through everyday for a couple of weeks or until your child correctly anticipates the next letter in the sequence. If you child is not speaking much, it will be a bit harder to pinpoint when he has mastered letter recognition. In that case, if you have already used the software for 2 -3 weeks, move him to the next step anyway and see how he does.
The next step is to play online or card games for a few minutes daily. There is an adorable online book called “ABC Mommy and Me” at www.lil-fingers.com/abc/. This animated flash book with sound effects presents an uppercase letter on the left of the screen and the lowercase counterpart on the right. A push of the button makes the letters move and then you can click the letters to hear the voices. Little ones love this book.
When you first play online introduce the first 3 – 5 letters of the alphabet. Click (or let him click) the animations so your child can hear the letter names. If he remembers them next day, make it more challenging by adding the next letter to the mix. Don’t forget to let him hear the audio after you’ve asked the letter name. Keep doing this (adding an additional letter each time he has successfully named the previous day’s letters) until he can recognize them them all.
For the next two games you’ll need small alphabet flashcards which, you can get for free at printable-flash-cards.com. You need one set of capital letters and one lowercase. Printing them on poster board rather than paper makes them more durable. The great thing about these is that they’re plain (without any pictures). Alphabet cards with pictures can distract and confuse a small child. He should be learning to identify the basic shape of the letter symbols; not the characters or other images that are on some of the store bought cards.
Card games may work well for a child who isn’t very verbal (because he won’t have to repeat the letter names yet). To play this one: place flash cards for the first 3 – 5 letters of the alphabet on a table and ask your child if he can give you the card of the letter that you specify. The more cards you use, the more challenging this game will be. Again, progress by adding additional letters to keep his interest when he appears to have mastered the first set.
A more advanced card game is for you to hold some capital letter cards and give your child cards with the corresponding lowercase letters. You can play something like “Go Fish” by saying: “I have big A. Can you give me little a?” And let your child sort through his cards to produce the matching letter. Place both cards on the table so he can see them next to each other. Congratulate him and show excitement if he is successful. If not, just show him the correct match. Make sure that you exchange sets every so often, so that he is learning both the uppercase and lowercase letters.
Finally, ask your child to point out letters in the world around him. Let him see that they’re on cereal boxes, cans, greeting cards, advertisements, etc. Our kids loved this game and began to spontaneously point out letters on signs and billboards whenever we went out.
After your child has mastered letter recognition, you’ll be able to move on to making letter-sound connections. Then, you can help him progress to reading simple words. Be sure to read the next article in this series: ” Traveling Down the Road to Reading ” for tips on how associations between letters and sounds can be made.