10 Steps to Teaching Your Child to Read
Reading doesn’t always come easy to every child. It can be frustrating trying to teach your child to read when you aren’t sure how. Maybe the way you learned to read isn’t working for your child. Whatever your struggles, here are the 10 steps to teaching your child to read that have been proven to be effective.
1 Model Reading
The first step in teaching a child to read is to model it by reading. You can read to your child or you can choose a book of your own to read. If your kids see you reading, it builds an interest in books. Ultimately your child looks up to you, and wants to be like you. So, before you even push
reading skills, show them how amazing reading can be.
2 Read to Your Child
Reading to your child can fall under modeling, but it is crucial to start reading to your child at a young age. Reading to your child even before they can talk gets your child interested and excited about reading books. It also helps them identify words, build comprehension, and confidence in reading.
3 Walk through the Book
Before a child can read a book on their own, they have to be able to understand the book as well as written language. Talk about the pictures in the book and ask questions such as:
● What do you think this book will be about?
● Where does this story take place?
● What happens if we start the book from the back?
● What do you think will happen next?
Using questions is a great way for kids to comprehend what they are hearing.
4 Use Your Finger When You Read
When you read a book to your child, begin by reading slowly and using your finger to point at each word. Your child will begin to recognize words that you point at. He or she will also learn that you read from left to right and up to down on the page. You don’t even have to teach this unless you want to. Just reinforce it each time you read.
5 Build a Child’s Confidence
Children have no connection to the letter A. Nothing in their life talks about the letter A. They are learning life through the experiences they have and the conversations they have with adults. You can begin to build your child’s confidence in reading by building a reading foundation. One of my favorite things to teach my kiddos is their color words. Kids understand colors, and there are a ton of fun songs that you can use to teach their spelling. Here are a few that I use:
● Red Song
● Orange Song
● Blue Song
● Yellow Song
● Purple Song
● Green Song
● Black Song
● White Song
Research actually shows kids learn better through music and dance, so get out these songs and start building some reading confidence.
6 Start with Sight Words
You might think that teaching a child to read is by teaching them their alphabet first. However, the alphabet can be super challenging to little ones. They have to learn lowercase, uppercase, and the sounds each letter makes. Then, they have to blend those sounds together. This can make reading frustrating. Instead, start with some sight words such as it, the, as, or other two- letter sight words that kids can easily memorize. Here are some games you can play:
● Swat a Sight Word
● Zingo
● Sight Word BINGO
7 Work on Letters
Once your child has a good foundation of sight words that they can easily read, you can begin teaching letters and letter sounds. Look around the house and find things that start with the letter you are doing. I like to do a letter per week.
8 Work on Blending Sounds
Blending sounds can be difficult for children. Start with words that are meaningful to the child such as mom, dad, cat, dog. When you begin to help your child blend the sounds to sound out a word, start with three letter words. Don’t move on until they have mastered these three letter
words. Here are some games to help ease the stress of this part of reading:
CVC Word Builders Activity Cards
Blending Puzzles
Roll a Word
9 Begin Teaching Digraphs and Diphthongs
These are super tricky for kids because these are the letters that blend to make different sounds and even silent letters. You don’t want to teach these higher level words until your little one has the confidence they need with the three letter words.
10 Consider The Reading Patch System
Are you ready to grow a confident reader? Although you can figure out this reading curve on your own, we can help you every step and every day with each of these steps using the Reading Patch. This is an innovative system that builds reading confidence first and foremost to grow your reader into the best readers they can be. The best thing about it – we give you explicit directions and hand-hold you to make sure you succeed.