How To Teach Your Preschooler To Read

How To Teach Your Preschooler To Read

Phonics For Three and Four Year Olds?

Teaching your child to read can be one of the most enjoyable things you will ever do. Preschool aged children are eager to learn and have an amazing capacity to absorb information. The key is to keep it simple and keep it fun. Do a little each day and maintain a relaxed environment.

I have taught seven of my children to read using the methods I will write about. They were all fluent readers by age five. 

*I taught two of my children to read using a packaged phonics curriculum. They didn't begin to gain fluency until ages 6 and 8. This isn't to say that the curriculum was to blame. After all, every child is an individual and will learn at their own pace. I only mention this to show that a child can learn to read just as well without spending money on a purchased program.

Getting Started: Don't Teach the Alphabet

I remember well my oldest son's first phonics lessons. They were a jumble of mixed up letter sounds, letter names, and names of the colorful objects decorating a set of "phonics" flashcards. By the end of the lesson, my son was in information overload and I was ready to pull my hair out.

Later, I complained to my mother-in-law about the fiasco. "Sometimes he remembers the name of the letter but gives it the wrong sound. And by the time we get to the fourth letter, he's forgotten the first one!"

She looked at me and asked one simple question. "Why are teaching him the names of the letters?"

It was a good question. Why was I teaching them? After all, we don't read the letters. We read their sounds.

I went home and replaced the phonics cards with a laminated placemat with the alphabet printed across it in a variety of colors. This placemat was all my children needed to begin reading.

How To Teach the Letter Sounds: Keep It Positive

Here is how a lesson might look. The child sits in front of me as I hold up the mat. As I point to the first letter, I tell the child its sound. It is important when doing this that you are careful to say the sound EXACTLY as it would be sounded out in a word so that blending will come easier later. (For instance, if a child learns that the letter c says "cuh," then they will pronounce the word cat as "cuhat".)

The child repeats the sounds as I say them. After three or four new letters, we start at the beginning again. I point to the letters and the child tells me their sound. If they don't remember, I say the sound and move on to the next one. We do this a few times, or until the child loses interest.

Sometimes I will draw on the placemat or use my hands to give a memory clue to help the child remember the letter. The whole lesson is treated as if it were a game to see what the child can remember. Sometimes I award a small prize for each sound remembered, such as a penny or a chocolate chip.

If you teach your child the phonics sounds without showing them what the sounds are used for, they will quickly lose interest. So it is important to allow your child to begin sounding out words as soon as they have learned enough sounds to make a word with. If your child knows the sounds for the letters "a", "c", and "t", show them the word "cat" and help them sound it out. Even if you do most of the "actual work", praise them and tell them, "Good job! You're reading!"

When the child can tell me the sounds of all twenty-six letters, we start reading sentences.