Read, read, read. From the moments spent nursing in my arms, our children have been read to. I believe being read to has paved the way, broad and smooth, to the land of language and literacy for our children.
Our five year old is just putting letter sounds together, eyes lighting up at remembrance turning into recognizable words. Seven year Andrew is a slow and hesitant reader, and we let him move at his own pace, knowing many friends experienced with boys picking up reading at a later age. Our nine year old went from learning her phonics chart to traditional three letter books straight to chapter books at age five. We have trouble prying books from under her nose still. With all our children we have been consistent in our teaching style, which is phonetically based.
So we continue with singing our ABC song, “A says “a”, A says “a”, every letter makes a sound and A says “a”…., letting the kids play with the Leapfrog alphabet game hanging on the fridge, the Code books, and regular reading together as a family.
~ Hannah
I taught both my girls to read at the age of 4 through The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading by Jesse Wise. It is a simple, text only, scripted book that is available through Peace Hill Publishing for a very economical cost! I purchased the kit and did every optional exercise and sometimes our lessons together were 15 min and other times they were 45 min but we mostly enjoyed them. There were days when it really was work to both of us (who said learning isn’t work!) but there were lots of days when we enjoyed the time with each other. They would get so excited about the progress that they could see in themselves and truly love the benefits of being able to read a book by themselves whenever they want to. I recommend this reading program to anyone serious about getting their young ones reading early and it gave me the confidence in my ability to teach my children at home. I had prepared myself for late readers (as I know there is a wide gap of normal in ages as to when they begin to blend) but I was hoping for early and I wanted to give it a try. I started teaching my firstborn with the idea of “If I can teach them to read (complex but yet so simple) then I can teach them anything!” and have pushed forward into the homeschooling world running without looking back!
Language Arts has seemed to be the hardest subject for my children to grasp. We struggled with the right curriculum for years. Both of my boys learn with a hands on approach. It was hard to find something that would fit that way of learning until last year when we stumbled across the All About Spelling curriculum. All About Spelling uses all the senses while learning to spell, read and write.
My oldest son had struggled to understand phonics rules for many years. Nothing seemed to work until we found this and now it’s finally clicked. Both of my boys are using this curriculum and it has been a huge blessing in our home.
Did a certain subject ever make you question whether you were cut out to homeschool your children? Did it ever make you feel like a complete failure? Reading has been a struggle in our household. My oldest, age 6, has struggled with reading since the day we began. I bought several different phonics programs in addition to the textbook curriculum that I was just sure would be the answer to our problems. For some time, a couple friends of mine, had been suggesting Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. One day, after watching her struggle through our lessons, I went to an online bookstore and purchased the book. I really could have saved myself a lot of money if I would have just purchased this book first.
For any homeschooling parent wondering how in the world they are going to teach their children to read- this is the book I recommend. It has step by step instructions, and, if you’re like our family, you may notice a huge difference in your child’s understanding within just a few lessons.
Looking back, I wish we would have read more books to our daughter as I truly think that would have helped prepare her for reading, but we’ve learned from our mistakes which have helped us in teaching our younger children. (By the way, our four year old is catching on with reading quickly!)
My first son knew all of his letters and their sounds by the time he was two and a half. Of course, he was our first, so we worked with him. We bought him foam letters for the bathtub. He had picture flashcards he’d beg me to walk him through. He watched the Leap Frog Letter Factory video. He pointed out all the letters in web addresses on the t.v. screen. And we read aloud to him daily, moving our finger under the words. One morning when he was four and I was reading to him he stopped pointing to all the letters he knew. This time he pointed to a word and said, “Mommy, what does this word say?!” I read it to him and he wanted me to back up, sound it out slowly and he copied me. That was the beginning. I wasn’t going to hold him back. If he wanted to learn I was going to teach him. I found an old phonics instruction book at my local library, bought a used copy off of ebay and we were off. Thus began our journey into reading and homeschooling. By the time he was Kindergarten age, he was reading his own birthday cards and letters. I can’t really say that I taught my oldest son to read, I just guided him as he wanted to learn.
My second son loved to write and draw by the time he was two. While visiting his grandpa the two of them sat and wrote the alphabet every evening and drew doodles all around the letters. It was a fun memory and my second son’s reading journey is dotted with neat experiences…with lots of gaps in between. This son wasn’t nearly as verbal and didn’t have the propensity to sit and look at books like my first son did. I didn’t want to fall in the trap of comparing the two of them, knowing my first had really learned at a very early age. So, I did spatial play with him instead of word play. As often as I could incorporate it into our playtime I would walk him through letter sounds, but he grew weary of that game quickly. We continued to read aloud to him daily and waited patiently for him to take an interest. His journey has been one of skill-building peaks followed by painful valleys. I have taken him through the same phonics book as his brother, but blends, diphthongs and rhymes don’t seem to make sense to him. He loves audio books and he has occasionally read a book to his baby brother, but still at nearly 8 he does not consider himself a reader. And I don’t consider myself a failure: he is young, he is male and his dad is dyslexic. It’s quite possible he’s just taking after his father, who even so has four higher degrees, so I will walk beside him for as long as it takes until reading becomes his.
My children are 3 and 5, so we are newly out of the alphabet phase, are currently drilling in the phonics phase, and ever-so-slowly starting into the putting-letters-together-to-form-words phase! Teaching the alphabet is the first step, and our children could recite the alphabet and recognize the 26 letters by sight before they were 2 years old. These are the methods and resources we used with success:
- Lots and lots of alphabet books! We have several books with one letter per page and one (or two) objects starting with that letter illustrated alongside it. We read these all day long, and frequently used them at bedtime for one last fun practice for the day.
- Meet the Letters DVD by Preschool Prep was a super-valuable resource and investment! After watching it just 3-4 times, both children knew the lowercase and uppercase letters by sight. No frills here…just pure and simple letter repetition with simple, animated graphics.
- Another terrific DVD is LeapFrog’s Letter Factory! This moves a little more into the phonics realm, but it is still a terrific program for little ones to enjoy — the characters are lovable and kind!
- Fun alphabet-learning games. One fun game was an alphabet paper plate caterpillar puzzle, super-cheap (homemade) and fun because of its large scale! (The tutorial is here….our fun with it is documented here!) Another fun idea the kids loved is an alphabet letter hunt, using nothing but the driveway and some sidewalk chalk! Learning combined with exercise is always a good thing!
- We also provided alphabet placemats for mealtimes, alphabet puzzles for easy reach, and letter stamps for paint play
- You can even build an entire preschool curriculum around the alphabet! Brightly Beaming Resources has an excellent, easy-to-follow letter-of-the-week curriculum available for free online.
Photo Credit: Heidi, Mt Hope Academy
Two of my children were busy, tactile learners. When they wearied of sitting, I turned learning into games with lots of action. We played Mother May I? –with phonics. I would say something like, “Tell me which word has the short “a” sound, rock, tree, or hat.” When they came up with the right answer, I had some crazy frog imitation or bird dance for them to imitate to move forward. My wiggly students were highly motivated.
When we worked a puzzle or sat at a park, I challenged my kids to identify an object that started with a particular letter. In the grocery store, my busy children had their own “lists” of items to identify. They located letters early in the phonics training and moved on to words as their skills grew.
When they began reading chapter books, we took turns reading pages or paragraphs. Observing someone else model reading aloud helped my children gain confidence. It also broke up the task of reading long pages, which seemed like a huge task to them in the beginning.
~ Rhodema
My two children have distinctly different learning styles. While my daughter seemed to absorb language and reading just by hearing and seeing the words we read to her from birth, that wasn’t enough for my son. But puzzles? Oh, how he has always loved puzzles! A simple, wooden ABC puzzle kept him entranced. Soon, he was able to put the letters in the correct spots – no small feat with 26 cut-outs. Learning letter names and sounds quickly followed, and I am convinced that process helped my kinesthetic learner become an early reader. For both children, sing-song books like the Jesse Bear series, Dr. Seuss and a few other treasures made reading come alive. Even though my youngest is now 11, I could still quote some of those early books in my sleep.
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