5 Tips to Teach Your Child To Read

Children’s brains are sponges and they absorb so much information on a daily basis.  As they grow up one of the most rewarding things they will learn to do is to read.  Words are everywhere!  When children can read independently the world is a much more exciting place.

5 Tips to Teach Your Child to Read:

1. Have plenty of reading material in your house starting from infancy.  Bright colorful books are important for young children.  As they grow your collection will include books with large print and small print words.

2. Read at least one story per day to your child.  Start when they are very young with a few minutes per day and work up to a whole story.  A bedtime story (or three or four) has always been the norm in our house.  Making reading time be special time.

3. Point out letters, words, and signs.  Talk about the printed world around you.  Spend time working with magnetic letters and drawing letters and words on paper.

4. Let your child see that you read too!  Reading magazines and books around your children shows them that reading is important and fun.

5. Teach phonics.  Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is my absolute favorite way to teach children to read!  My older daughter started this book before she was 4 and my younger daughter started when she was closer to four-and-a-half since she had articulation issues that required speech therapy.

This summer we added academic time to our week with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  To make reading exciting, as opposed to an event that took away from play time, I added a $5.00 incentive for completing 10 lessons.

Little Sister (age 4.5) is working on basic skills such as blending and matching the phonetic sound with the letter.  She is officially reading a few simple words by herself.  One of the best parts about this book is that the skills taught to children snowball.  They are taught the basics and thing progressively get more challenging.

Big Sister (almost 6-years-old) is reading full stories and her comprehension is tested when I ask questions about the story.  The world around her is a magical place because she is able to READ!  One day after Big Sister had turned five we had the following conversation after I left the girls in the car for 20 seconds to drop the library books in the drop off bin.

Big Sister: “MOM!!!!!  Why did you park here?”
Me: “So I could drop off the books.”
Big Sister: “But Mom, you are going to go to jail.”
Me: “No honey, the books made it back in time.”
Big Sister: “LOOK!  That sign says NO PARKING.  You parked right next to a no parking sign and the police officer is going to take you to jail.”
Me: “You are absolutely right that the sign says no parking.  I will remember that next time.” And I smiled because my child was reading and the world suddenly made sense to her.  Her desire to read by herself was incredible and we had the perfect teaching tool!  I have been a longtime fan of this program, as you can see from my other Teach Your Child to Read post….which includes many more facts.  Be sure to check it out.

If you have an older child who is struggling with reading then Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is perfect to use with them as well.

You can purchase Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons on Amazon or at your local bookstore.  Twenty minutes a day is all you need to give your child the reading skills they will require for a bright future!