How do you teach your kids to read?
Learning to read is a bit of a mystery to most of us. What should you do if you actually have to teach it to a child you are responsible for homeschooling? Or what should you do if your child just isn’t getting it at school? For some kids, it might just magically happen, like a light turning on. But from what I can gather, there seem to be some very definite and logical steps they must progress through, in order to have success. At least, that’s what my experience so far has taught me! It’s so easy as a mum to be tempted to rush your kid on to the next stage before they are ready.
There are a couple of different methods for teaching reading, but I definitely subscribe to the phonics approach. While I am in no way an expert on this, here are the basic steps that I have taken with each of my kids – hopefully this is helpful for others!
1. Read aloud to them from birth
Reading aloud to your children will grow in them a love of stories and of being read to. This essentially gives them a head start, and is instrumental in developing their understanding. Task your older kids with reading to the younger ones if you don’t have the time. The more the better. And don’t stop when they are reading by themselves; keep it up all through their childhood! Even if kids don’t have a high reading age, they can still be exposed to more challenging content in this way (also via audiobooks). Kids of all ages LOVE being read to. I’ve heard of families continuing this even into the teenage years as a favourite family pastime. Check out the Read Aloud Revival blog for more inspiration and info on the importance of reading aloud.
2. Recognition of letters
This might sound obvious, but it takes a LOT of patience, perseverance and time to ensure your child knows what each of the 26 letters’ names are, both upper and lower case. Don’t be tempted to rush on to the next stage before they have mastered this one! Although with a really enthusiastic child, you could probably do steps 2 and 3 (below) together. Also, expect this to take longer than what you planned for. I often find myself getting impatient for the next step.
There are lots of creative ways in which you can help them learn the letter names, whether with colouring in pages, drawing in a box of rice or sand, drawing with chalk outside, magnetic letters, games where you stand on the letter you call out etc.. in the end I mostly just used flash cards to be honest, since it took the least time and effort. I started with 1 or 2 letters, then added a couple each day. Rote learning is pretty boring, but sometimes it is necessary and makes the most sense.
3. Letter sounds
Once your child is confident in naming all the letters of the alphabet, move on to teaching the sounds. This is really important! Letter sounds are the building blocks for phonics. Once again, I found that a simple flash card approach worked most efficiently, but to make it more interesting you can combine this with a simple game. For example, asking them a different one every time they ride past you on their bike (like a checkpoint), or getting them to sort the letters into right and wrong piles as you go and rewarding based on how many are correct.
4. Begin a phonics program
There is truly no point in moving on to a phonics program until your child knows all his/her letters and sounds. I found that out the hard way!
I used a combination of phonics programs such as Reading Freedom Phonics First from Pascal Press and Adventures in Phonics, together with a brilliant but simple one that my husband’s school created themselves. Despite its simplicity (it’s actually just photocopied handwriting!) it has been so helpful for us. It methodically progresses from sounding out simple words such as ‘can’ (they read it as ‘c – an’) and ‘ham’ (‘h – am’) through to blends (bl, gl, ch), then onto more complex sounds eg. ‘ight’ and ‘ough’. I found their program moved at a much quicker pace than the workbooks, which meant the children got reading more quickly.
I think the key is to go at the child’s pace. So if they are struggling on a particular section, keep practising that before moving on. Or, if they don’t like feeling stuck, you can keep moving through and then come back and go through it again. The later stuff usually builds on the earlier concepts anyway, so they will likely be practising it over and over as they progress. On the flip side, if they’re finding something really easy, perhaps skip through that section quite quickly so they don’t get bored.
5. Read simple books
As soon as they have completed their phonics program, start them reading simple phonics books to you. I would aim for at least one per day, but you can easily do more if you rope in the older kids. It’s really important to actually listen and correct them though. It’s also better to get them to sound out a difficult word syllable by syllable, rather than just telling them the word (a particular temptation with impatient older siblings!)
The library system in Auckland has a helpful reading level sticker on each kids’ book to make this easy. There are so many different systems and early reader series, so this just simplifies it for us! You will find it on the front cover of kids’ early reader books and chapter books – see the image below. The picture is a simple graph with levels 1 – 6, and the dark green bar is the approximate reading level. Just start at 1 and work your way up! I tend to stick to the phonics type readers, but if they choose another one I’ll get that too (the more the merrier!)
6. Read more complex books
The best way for kids to get better at reading is to practise. So keep on listening to them read! Gauge when a reading level becomes too easy, and then pick books at the next level up. You want them to keep on being challenged, without being overwhelmed. The test for whether a book is the right level is based on the number of words they read wrongly on a page. More than 5 words wrong = too hard. 0-1 words wrong = too easy.
7. Watch them go
At some point, they’ll become pretty fluent readers and also fairly independent. With a child who already loves reading, let them go for it! Picture books, school journals, simple chapter books, the back of cereal boxes… While you should still check up on their word attack skills every now and then, and check they’re reading at the right level, you can essentially relax and savour the fact that you’ve succeeded in teaching your kid to read! They’ll keep improving the more they read. Seek out great books for your kids.
With a reluctant reader (or a boy who would rather be building lego or riding bikes) you will probably need to keep insisting on them reading at least one book to you every day for a while. If you are fairly confident that they are reading well, you can require them to do say 30 minutes of independent reading a day. We discovered this was more acceptable to Alex just before bedtime rather than in the middle of prime time for hut building!
8. Reading Comprehension
Even when your kids are reading competently, you need to keep tabs on their comprehension. Reading comprehension is more complex than just deciphering a word on a page. It is a skill which can apparently be broken down into re-organisation, inferencing and evaluation. The Key Comprehension Series is a great resource used by schools to check for these skills. Other resources can be used to practise reading comprehension, such as workbooks from the Pascal Press Excel range. (Incidentally, under normal circumstances you can buy these on TradeMe from my husband) Of course, as you read aloud to them or listen to them read you can be asking them questions to gauge their understanding too.
9. Struggling with reading?
What if your child has been taught to read at school, but is still struggling? Once again, I’m no expert.. but at my husband’s school, they test every kid who comes in. If he or she isn’t reading satisfactorily (no matter what age), they are taken individually through the school’s phonics program from the beginning. This is the same program all new entrants go through. Consequently, they have no reading recovery program! I figure a 100% reading success rate says something about the methodology. Start from the beginning with a decent phonics program and work from there.
10. Dyslexia
If none of the above works, and you suspect your child has a learning disability, seek help! This website looks helpful, and I’m sure there are tons of other places to go for information on dyslexia. I imagine it will probably mean the reading process is much slower. However, I remember Andrew Pudewa mentioning in a talk that even if your kid has trouble reading for themselves, get as much as you can into their brains via audiobooks and reading aloud to them. All that information and good stuff is still going in, even if they’re not reading it for themselves!
Hopefully these points are a helpful summary of the reading process. My aim is to encourage other parents to give it a go – you can do it! Persevere and prioritise this with your kids, since reading really is the gateway to a whole world of knowledge.
