I have taught hundreds of children how to read. To date, I have taught 919 students to read in my online classes through Outschool and hundreds more back when I was teaching ESL online. In addition, I taught both Pre-K & Kindergarten before my children were born, and I homeschooled my children all the way where I taught them both to read. I have also tutored reading through the years. Teaching reading is one of my favorite things to do! The reason is that when a child learns to read, it’s a step closer to being able to read their own Bible! I recently made a Youtube video about this. You can watch it here.
I have 5 STEPS for you that will help you teach your child or grandchild how to read. Trust me, it is SO EASY! I think that many people feel overwhelmed before they start because they think it’s a daunting task that takes a long time to accomplish. Actually, it only takes a little time for a child to begin reading. Kids are very quick to absorb new learning.
#1 Letter Sounds
Begin by teaching the letter sounds. Teach them in order A through Z. Cover one letter per day. Use the hand motions I have created for each letter to make the sound stick. Practice, practice, practice that sound the day that you’re covering it. Decorate it for letter recognition. Play a game to practice the sound. This will take 26 days.
#2 Vowels
Teach your child the vowels. They already know the letters sounds, but now pull out the letters a, e, i, o, u and tell them they are special letters we call the Vowels. Every word must have a vowel. If it doesn’t have a vowel, then it’s not a real word. Use the vowel people puppets to teach and practice these sounds. This will take 5 days (one week), one letter per day.
#3 Blending
Teach your child how to blend the consonants with each vowel. For example: ba, be, bi, bo, bu. Repeat this for every consonant. I recommend you go back through the consonants one day at a time to review the sound and blend that letter with all the vowels. For example, review the letter b sound. Add the vowels with the letter b and blend them. The next day, review the letter c sound and blend it with all the vowels. Continue each day with a new letter to blend all the way to letter Z. This will take 21 days. You can watch this video for a demonstration. Just skip to minute 4:10.
#4 Add a Third Letter – CVC
I’m sure you’ve probably heard the term “CVC words.” This refers to words made up of a consonant, vowel, and consonant such as the word sun. Now that your child or grandchild can blend, add another letter at the end. For example. ba…bag, bet, bin, bog, bus. Try to add a letter at the end for every blend, but only if it’s a real word. This will take 21 days.
Cue the confetti! Your grand/child is READING!!! And in just about 3 months or less, depending on their ability!
#5 Syllables
Now it’s time to teach your child to read longer words. You can teach them how to divide longer words into syllables. You can hear the division if you listen closely when you say a word. For example, picnic. Clap out the syllables. Pic – nic. Write the word so that they can see it. Show them how to divide the word into syllables by drawing a line between pic and nic. They can sound out the first part (pic) and then the second part (nic). Now have them put both parts together – “picnic.”
BONUS: Teach Special Sounds (Digraphs)
The only thing left for your child to be a super reader is for them to learn digraphs and diphthongs. These are special sounds two letters make when combined. Digraphs use either a vowel and a consonant or two consonants and usually occur at the beginning or end of a word. (Example, ch as in church) Diphthongs include two vowels and usually occur in the middle of a word. (Example, oo as in food)
I created some flashcards to help with this. You can find those here:
That’s it! Your child or grandchild can now read simple words, multi-syllable words, and words with special sounds. The only thing left to do is practice! In order for your child to become more fluent in reading, he/she must practice reading. The more they practice, the faster and more fluent they will become. The next step now is Comprehension. Are they understanding what they are reading in simple books? We will save that for another day! 😉