How to Teach Students to Read English

Do you have a student who is struggling to read English? If you, then you may need some good strategies to help! There are several steps to teach students how to read English. Of course, this isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Students who are trying to read English, usually already know more than one language. 

You’ll Need to Teach the Alphabet

The first step in teaching students to read English is to teach the alphabet. Every person that is learning how to read in English, will need to know the English alphabet. It’s also important that each person that learns the English alphabet, also knows how to sound out each letter. 

Teaching Phonics

As I mentioned earlier, sounds is another part of teaching someone to read in English. Phonics are the sounds incorporated in the English language. The person learning to read will need to know every sound in the alphabet. This includes the short vowel sounds, the long vowel sounds, diapgraphs, and blends. 

Teach the Simple Words First

Almost everyone that is learning to read in English will learn simple words first. Words like hat, cat, bat. These words help kids figure out how to sound out words to learn how to read. This will be a little difficult at first, but after a time, the words do get easier and easier. After the simple words are learned, you can start building on with harder and harder words. 

Start Building That Vocabulary

Another way to teach students how to read is to start building up their vocabulary. You can do this by giving them new words every single day. Any chance you get is a great opportunity to introduce them to new words. Vocabulary words are the foundation of reading and help kids really take off with reading. Anyone that is teaching a person to read English will need to help them build up vocabulary. 

Sight Words to the Rescue

One of the last ways to teach students how to read is by giving sight words to your pupil. Sight words are one of the most important parts of learning how to read. You’ll start your student off with basic sight words and they will work their way up. 

Read to the Students

Last, but not least, one of the best ways you can teach students to read English is through reading to the students. Pick out some good classic books and spend time reading. Did you know that reading to students is one of the best things you can do to help them learn to read?

Use the Reading Patch

If you want to try teaching students to read using the Reading Patch program sign up for our free Reading Test. The Reading Patch was created for children with English as a second language. It is slow and repetitive and confidence building.

Sign up below for the free reading test. It is the first step to helping your new or struggling reader.

Madreen Karle and Meeghan Karle Mousaw

Madreen Karle is a master first grade reading teacher with over 30 years of classroom experience. She taught reading in a special needs and English as a Second Language classroom. After retiring she wrote a reading program to help others learn how to teach reading. She is a trusted educator and author of 5 books to help teach children to read and write. In addition to her books, she is a mentor for 3 websites that give reading teacher tips (Mrs. Karle's Sight and Sound Reading, Mrs. Karle's Reading Patch, and Mrs. Karle's Handwriting Patch). Through her teaching she learned that confidence was the key to learning to read. A child who is not confident at reading does not like to read and struggles to read. Mrs. Karle created "sunshine moments" to help teach children how to grow their confidence and learn to read.

Meeghan Karle Mousaw (Madreen’s daughter) has her Master’s in Special Education. She has 7 years experience teaching children to read online. In addition, she developed a curriculum to teach children handwriting called The Handwriting Patch. With the Handwriting Patch learning is fun because children learn to draw and learn handwriting at the same time. In 2019 The Handwriting Patch curriculum became an amazon best seller the first year it was released, helping thousands of kids learn handwriting with a unique, fun method. She is mom to 6 kids, each with differently learning abilities and struggles.

The Reading Patch was established by the creators of Mrs. Karle’s Sight and Sound Reading. Together they have been featured on the NBC media outlets. Over the last 7 years in their online platform, Madreen and Meeghan have worked tirelessly with teachers, homeschoolers and parents looking to help children learn to read to become a trusted authority in teaching children to read and advocating early literacy skills. They often partner with other educational experts to deliver the most current information to the Reading Patch community.