Teaching Preschoolers to Read

[JC2]

I have a 3 y/o and a 4 y/o who both love to be read to. The 4 y/o memorizes lots of lines from the books and then loves to "read" them to us.

Have any of you taught someone this young to read, and/or do you know of any tried and true methods of teaching reading to this age?

 

[justhat]

My daughter was reading at 4yo and she learned phonetically. Her school never taught letter names, just their sounds, so she knew what each sound was and was able to start putting them together with 3 letter, phonetical words, like cup, cab, ten, bat, etc.

For sight words, we wrote them on sticky notes and stuck them up around the house so she could see them often and memorize them.

Then for patterns (like a_e, such as cake), we made mini, flip books. So one word/picture per page, and roughly 5 words per book, just to get the idea going. So the a_e book had cake, take, lake, bake, rake. Then it made identifying that pattern very easy when she came across words like that in books.

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

The best thing you can do is just continue to read to them and foster a love of books and reading. I wouldn't think in terms of "teaching" them to read; if they love books, and are read to often, they'll pick it up.

 

[skw444]

My dd was reading at age 4 as well. Like the PP, her school taught her the sounds of the letters and started putting together the sounds to read. They used the Bob series books which I recommend. Starfall is a great website that my dd liked that worked with phonics. They also focused on the site words which were made into flash cards. Common words such as the, is, and, etc which they just memorized.

 

[Mom&RN]

I learned to read at about 3 1/2. My Mom always says they didn't try to teach me, they just read to me a lot and at first she didn't even believe I could read. There are two main ways that we learn to read, the most common is phonetically which is learning the sounds that letters make and sounding out the words. Most people learn this way. The rarer way to learn is whole word learning where you actually recognize words as a whole vs. sounding them out. The stuff you see on TV where you use flashcards of whole words that folks are showing to little kids is whole word learning. The problem is that most people aren't whole word learners. Its my understanding that most early readers are whole word learners. I agree with the previous posters who say just keep reading and make sure that she can see the page with the words on it when you read. I think the time we spend reading to our kids is absolutely priceless!

 

[HamTown]

My older DD is a whole word learner and basically taught herself to read at 4. She would sit with her brother while he practiced his sight words for 1st grade and memorized them. I bought her the Bob books and she flew through them. She's now at the top of her grade in reading level. I have found that her comprehension is lagging slightly behind her fluency though.

Her younger sister is learning phonetically. Totally different learning process, and frankly, much slower. Reading "clicks" for different kids at different times and I'm not pushing it.

Enjoy reading with them. If she picks it up, fantastic! Run with it. If not, continue to read but wait a couple months to really push it the learning part.

Teaching kids to read is a little like potty training. Kids reach the ability at different times and all the skills have to be in place before true success can happen.

 

[Mrs. Charming]

I read at 3 because my mom read to me every night. Keep up the good work, and I'm sure you'll be rewarded very soon.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

My oldest child learned to read on his own at 3 1/2. After I realized he could read I helped him advance.

For my youngest I used the book "teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons." I started when he just turned 4, and he wasn't into it. So I put the book away, and brought it back out 6 months later. That time it was super easy, and he was reading within a few weeks.

If they are ready it should be easy to teach them. If they are frustrated by it, then it probably isn't worth it to stress out both them and yourself.

 

[sharlon]

I'm another one who used phonetics. I didn't push my kids to learn to read early, just helped them when they wanted to learn to read. We found the Letter People program to be good for learning letter sounds, and The Bob Books are GREAT for combinations of letter sounds and basic reading. Best of luck!

 

[emer95]

Both of my girls started reading at the age of 3. We read to them constantly, and whenever we were driving in the car and driving past signs I would say, "What letter do you see?" If they said "T" we would all make the "t-t-t-" sound. Eventually they started sounding out small rhyming words. Pat, bat, rat.

I remember my younger daughter's preschool teacher come to me, beaming, saying, "She can READ! She's not memorizing, she's reading full books!" Apparently she picked up the book Seven Silly Eaters and started reading it to her friends, LOL!

My SIL refused to believe she could read at the age of 3, until she took her to the county club with her. My daughter looked at the sign and started reading, "Pool Rules. Number 1. No running on deck." Her jaw dropped and she finally believed me.

You're doing the best thing you can do for your children- reading to them often!

 

[torinsmom]

I teach 4-5 year olds in a Montessori public school. We use sandpaper letters to teach the sounds and do 5 letters at a time(4 consonants and a vowel) You can get tactile letters at teacher stores. The sandpaper is there, so you can show the child the way to trace the letter and they can see, hear and feel the letter. We don't teach the letter name; we teach only the sound. We also have objects that start with each of the letters the child is learning.

This is how our lesson goes. The letters are laid out on a rug.

Trace the first letter and say "This is aaaa(sound) Now you trace it and say the sound."

Continue with all the letters.

Ask the child to "Show me aaa. Show me buh", etc. If they get it wrong, correct them gently by reminding them, "This is buh."

Have the child say the name of the object and match it to its beginning letter.

After they have matched all the objects, so the show me part again. If they seem to be doing well with this, go to "What is this sound?" while pointing to a letter.

We also have little letter books that have pictures of things that start with each letter. The kids really like the books and the "work" as well. Six of my nine 4 year olds are reading at this point, and the other three should be there by the end of the school year.

Marsha

 

[SunshineOR]

Great advice from everyone and I of course also recommend fun activities and lots of books. If you want to get focused and use a system, though, I have tried that and have some experience with it. I used Frontline Phonics with my first two kids, and it was okay, but not great, especially considering how expensive it was. There were times they didn't "get" it and got frustrated. They learned to read very well and enjoyed the wonderful variety of books that came with the system, but when they got to school, they didn't understand the teaching system being used and had to start all over at the beginning to learn the system in place.

I used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with my 2nd two, and we loved it. Although I don't consider these two kids as naturally intelligent as my first two, my 2nd two kids learned to read much more quickly and with no frustration. They looked forward to our sessions and enjoyed it. Also worked well because their school uses the same distar reading system, so when they went to kindergarten, their school was using the same system and the transition was really smooth. They both made a lot more progress the first two years of school, I think because they tested well initially based on the school tests matching the system they'd used, plus they were comfortable with the system and didn't have to adjust like my first two kids did.

I would totally recommend Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. It's affordable and works great. Secondly, I would look into what system will be used in the school they'll be entering (whole language vs. Phonics, what kind of books, process, etc) and find something that will be a good lead-in for what they'll be doing when they enter school.

 

[catycatcat4]

i started reading when i was like 3 1/2 but i don't remeber being 3 so i am not help.

 

[IDoDis]

Let your kids explore http://www.starfall.com/ . They can start reading simple 3 letter word books online and progress to higher levels of difficulty. The program highlights what is slowly being read and drags out the sounds. There are also fun games on the website your kids will enjoy. It's all free. Have fun with it at this stage. Don't push it, but find opportunities to teach in a fun way. I used to play games in the car when my DD was four years old and starting to sound out words. I'd say, "Let's play a game. Mommy will say some letter sounds and you try to guess my word." Then I'd say the sounds for M-O-M. She'd think & process for a moment and say, "Mom!" I'd overdo it and say, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe you guessed my word!"

When my DD started reading the words in books, she just took off. I bought about 20 different Dr. Seuss beginning reader books on ebay for her (Hop on Pop, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, etc..), but by the time the books arrived via media mail a couple weeks later, DD had already surpassed those Dr. Seuss books and was starting to read some simple chapter books.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[JoShan1719]

I learned to read when i was four. I had a book called "I Can Read" that my mom would read to me over and over. I basically memorized the book and was able to match the words on the page with the words I was saying. I was reading full books by the time I started kindergarten.

I wish I'd picked up math that easily

 

[Diva of Dragons]

I was reading at 2 and just picked it up by my Mom reading to me. Your DD probably knows more than it seems.

 

[damo]

My kids were reading really early too. I remember going to a friend's house that had three youngsters and the subject came up. The husband didn't believe that a little 3 year old could read and thought she had just memorized a few books. So we told him to pick out one of his kids' books and have her read it to him. Sure enough, she read the entire thing. He was amazed.

I never taught them to read. I think it was mostly Dr. Suess. The book Put me in the Zoo comes to mind as one of their earliest books.

I also remember a few people questioning why we would teach her to read. I doubt we could have stopped her!!!

 

[BuzznBelle'smom]

It's not about learning to read, it's about a lifetime love of books.

Don't sweat "teaching" them--read to them. Model reading by reading yourself.

Mine learned to read at 4, 3, 2, and 4. The only one I "taught" was #2--he was a late walker and late talker, so we were told he'd have difficulty learning to read. Plus, his dad has a learning disability. So, him I worked with. I taught letter sounds and blends and read to him until I was hoarse. I wanted him to love books, even if he learned to read late. He surprised everyone!

Set a good foundation, and whenever they learn to read, they'll really run with it.

 

[torinsmom]

My kids were reading really early too. I remember going to a friend's house that had three youngsters and the subject came up. The husband didn't believe that a little 3 year old could read and thought she had just memorized a few books. So we told him to pick out one of his kids' books and have her read it to him. Sure enough, she read the entire thing. He was amazed.

I never taught them to read. I think it was mostly Dr. Suess. The book Put me in the Zoo comes to mind as one of their earliest books.

I also remember a few people questioning why we would teach her to read. I doubt we could have stopped her!!!

If they are ready, they will show you that for sure! And I think some people picture a 3-4 year old at a desk with a parent or other adult badgering them for an hour at a time. I don't know about most situations, but in my classroom, it is 5-10 minutes a day at most and the kids are laughing and having fun the whole time. They will bring me a letter sound basket and ask for me to come do it with them. Between the ages of 2 and 6, the brain soaks up the information like a sponge; learning written language is easiest between the ages of 3 1/2 and 6, at least according to Maria Montessori.

Marsha

 

[2cats1kid]

My DD loved books from a few months old and started to recognise her letters totally spontaneously from 15 months old. By 2 and a bit she knew all her letters phonetically and could put simple words (pig, dog) together. Then we hit the irregular words and things went a bit pear shaped so we left it for a while as she was getting fed up.

At 3 she said "mummy I want to learn to read properly" so I read several books on teaching reading and the one I felt would work for her was this one
http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Refle..._1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273412801&sr=8-1#noop
We did about 3 sessions and she just flew after that.

Instead of saying letters represent sounds, it says sounds are represented by letter combinations. So the "eye" sound can be represented by i_e (tide, ride) or eigh (height) or aye etc. Some of these representations can make different sounds (eigh can also say ay as in sleigh). So it turns normal methods on their head rather. The child recognises the blocks, knows what sounds they represent, and can try different options to see which makes sense (so they would try both versions of eigh, maybe, and select the one that makes the sound they "expect").

DD was gifted in reading, but by age 5 she had a reading age of about 12 and read the first Harry Potter book by herself. It worked for her!