I am full of questions lately!

My DS6 is PG. He taught himself to read literally overnight when he was 4 years 8 months old. Just woke up reading and within a couple months he was reading chapter books silently. No instruction.

My DD4.5 really wants to read like her brother. She asks me to teach her all the time. We read all day long, there are TONS of books and other print in our home. I see the benefit of independent reading when I observe DS. No matter how much I read to him, he can read more.

My question... did any of you teach children to read? Pros/cons? What did you use? Etc. Thanks!

No formal teaching here. We read to our DD frequently, and she had tons of access to books. She watched Word World, and we had a group of Leapfrog videos dealing with phonics that she viewed obsessively. I can't think of anything else we did.

Our library had BOB books with audio CDs and DD listened to them in her room, as well as other audio books. I listened to her read the first couple set of BOB books, and then she was reading easy readers like Go, Dog, Go; or Are you My Mother? Other than that I did not really do much to teach her, I think it was mainly the audio books that helped.

With DS it was basically the same thing but I don't think he's ever listened to an audio book. He has always been better with decoding and learned very rapidly in preschool when I had him read easy readers to me once or twice per week.

With both kids the BOB books seemed to make things click in terms of word blending, but I only used a couple sets then moved onto to "normal" books.

My question... did any of you teach children to read? Pros/cons? What did you use? Etc. Thanks!


Yes, DD was taught-- at about the same age as your DS, and with about the same results. Within six months she had moved on to Harry Potter and voracious consumption of any print material she could lay hands upon. She was never a read-aloud kid, either-- silent reading almost from the start.

I should preface this by stating that she already knew phonemes, the alphabet, etc. and could reason symbolically quite well (was doing math without manipulatives or physical representations). So she had better foundation skills than a lot of kids who are two or more years older than that.

We probably COULD have "taught" her decoding skills about two years sooner with the exact same result. (Long, long, LONG story why we didn't-- and not that relevant.)

We brought home a couple of sets of phonetically controlled readers (though she hated the BOB books and preferred something which is out of print now but was colorful and snarky).

It was the blending/decoding that she needed to be explicitly shown. That took a couple of weeks, working with her a few minutes each day.

I taught basic phonetics and blends (e.g. th, sh), vowel sounds, and short sight words. The sight words were the most helpful. He independently read his first book just after his fifth birthday and was reading chapter books within six months.

I want to add that I felt DS was "ready" to read, was deeply frustrated that he wasn't reading, and needed only very basic instruction to get him there. I've seen several of DS's friends learn to read a year or two later (generally around mid first grade), and catch on quickly.

Thank you all. Cammom... that's exactly what I feel like I see in her right now. She is so frustrated that she isn't reading. She knows the letters, the sounds, and a bunch of sight words. She could take off like he did three months from now (when he did), but who is to say? I just feel badly because she wants to read and is conflicted because she has some books memorized and will say sadly, "But I'm not REALLY reading the words."

Not sure whether to wait or help her a bit.

I used a set of these Brand New Reader books with DS as well and they aren't bad.
http://www.brandnewreaders.com/

Teach? Yes and no - and this may be the only place I can say this: we come from a family of early readers and I just ASSUMED my kids would learn to read before they started school - and they did.

What I did do: read to them CONSTANTLY, exposed them to LOTS of "sight words," and our home is a super text-rich environment.

My DC seemed to pick up reading from the sight words, because those were the first words I noticed them reading. I do think that if they read enough sight words, they really do seem to just "figure out" or "understand" the rest. Honestly, from there, they simply figured out decoding - they are both EXCELLENT decoders. Then, when I'd read to them, I'd notice they were no longer simply listening, but following along (they would CORRECT me if I started to improvise, which I sometimes do when I'm getting tired ).

To be fair, I don't think my DC are "typical" - but neither are most of the DC on this list.

Sorry that your daughter is so frustrated. Reading can be very developmental and despite her want to learn it it might not come as easy to her as her brother. I know a very gifted young lady, who despite being obviously gifted and being taught all the right stuff didn't read till the beginning of 2nd grade but then took off and never looked back. I'm just saying this to reassure you that precisely when you learn to read isn't directly tied to your intellect.

My younger child (DS15) taught himself to read when he was 3 with very little help except for the fact that there was a lot of print in the house. We did have the Bob books, and I do remember reading them with him at least once.

On the other hand my older DD (19) started to learn to read in K, but struggled and didn't learn to read well until 3rd grade. She didn't have a major problem picking up phonics, or the simple site words. At the start of 1st grade she was reading above grade level but then she slowed down and the rest of the class zoomed by her. (She does have language LD's) I used the Bob books with her. And reading, reading, reading. Pointing out the words while I read. She watched T.V. shows like Between the Lions, and edutainment programs that probably now don't even run on modern computers.

Aiden was like that, and he had learnt all the letter names and sounds on his own. He recognised names of shops already and was reading a few words here and there on signs etc.

I had no idea how to teach a child so young how to read - he was not yet 3 (any child actually) and so I printed out words and we played games with them. Words for household objects like door, wall, window, tap, cupboard etc. He would choose a word, I would read it to him and let him repeat it. Then he would stick it to that object and choose another word. This way he could match words easily.

At the same time he started knowing random words in books and seeing the repetition of common sight words (and, it, as, is, was etc). He loved bigger words more than smaller words so we used themes that he chose and we made word walls. I would write the word in black marker and we would both draw little pictures of the words before sticking them on his bedroom wall.

So we just played games. I found a puzzle set with words spelled out and other easy to use games.

In hindsight it was lucky I did it this way - he is actually a whole word reader so it worked out so well for us. Phonetic anything confused him until just this year when suddenly the blends started making sense.

Nathan was different. He just woke up reading also very very young.

Now Dylan is the frustrated one and is doing as Aiden did, but seems to enjoy phonics and whole word, so we are doing a combo of bob books, games, and the word wall. (well we will once my current exams finish)

To me this is a red flag that if you don't teach her now, she will conclude that there's something wrong with her/learning new things just isn't possible/whatever she does isn't the real deal. I took a very hands-off approach with my second one and decided I didn't mind if she didn't read until school. By then every time she thought about text she had such a negative idea of her abilities that she didn't work on it enough to learn for a year and a half. Neither of my kids picked up reading by osmosis and it was critical to have the attitude that it's normal to work on this a bit and it's normal for it to be a little hard. Once I started insisting on daily reading time and showed her the progress that she made, she also made huge leaps and bounds in every other area - physical, social, and academic. I'm still reeling from the 'growth spurt' she made over the last month.

So while I have no useful suggestions of curriculum, I think it's damaging to not teach a child who is asking to learn and probably is able to.

Oh - and I remember my sister at around 2.5 sadly insisting that she couldn't really read real books, just words on pages and signs and... We eventually made her a book she could read (I don't think we had access to Bob books at that time) and her confidence just flowered.

So while I have no useful suggestions of curriculum, I think it's damaging to not teach a child who is asking to learn and probably is able to.

I think so, too. I bitterly regret not taking the initiative to teach DD at 2, when she was VERY clearly capable, and eager to learn.

She's so highly visual that being read to was really not as enjoyable for her as reading silently to herself. I look back and realize that it was selfish of us to want to preserve the experience of reading TO her-- which she ditched almost immediately and without a backwards glance. I can count on one hand the number of books I've read TO her since she was 5 years old. Her preference.

NOT teaching her two years sooner was a mistake. That's two years that she could have more fully enjoyed print materials.

I have nothing against teaching a child who WANTS to learn to read at an early age. The key being if the child wants the help. Just to keep in mind that it might be slow going at first and that it isn't a big deal if a child doesn't read until they are a bit older. I like the suggestion that you keep a book to illustrate the progress she has made.

But I have seen many parents who PUSH their child to start reading at a young age who aren't interested, and schools that push reading earlier and earlier to no major gain on the kids part. I had numerous parents in K want to know what "magic" I did to get my son to read. And I really didn't have a good answer.

YES!

I almost think the developmental burst that allows school to teach a child to read is not in some innate ability to read, but the maturity (or whatever you want to call it) to learn what someone else wants to teach when the child has no desire to learn it themselves. I'm sure that there is some reading-ability change as well, but the motivation behind the teaching (adult or child request) makes all the difference in the world.

Thank you! I'm sure she will get it. She's still young. I just hate seeing her frustrated by it. We read constantly, tons of print in the house, she's started writing more (DS6's writing lead to his reading- not sure if that is typical for these kids). Perhaps part of it is sibling stuff. DS reads SO much and is so passionate about sharing what he's read. She wants that, too. I get it!

I'm on my cell and missed the entire second page of discussion. Ljoy... That's what I'm feeling. She wants to, she's frustrated. She too young to feel this frustrated. And it must be difficult to have a sibling 19 months older than you gushing about how fun it is. I think I'll just try little bits of instruction to see. Not sure what, exactly, but just so she feels she us making progress.

Part of this is my own issue... I know people think I hothoused our eldest and we did not. So now teaching the second sorta feels like hot housing, if that makes sense.

And HK, your DD sounds like my eldest. His reading happened so quickly and with such speed. I was happy that he was reading but I mourned our read aloud time. I'm too slow for him- and that happened within a couple months of him learning to read. Now, at six, he will appease me once in a great while and allow me to read something but he would rather read silently.

Both my kids were interested in reading young, loved learning their letters, were into phonics, asked me to spell things so they could write, and were read to very often, but they didn't learn to actually read until they started school at 5. Boom, within days. Not sure what those teachers were doing that we weren't, but obviously they know their stuff Once the kids got started, they raced away - reading a year ahead literally within weeks, and at college level well before they hit their teens.
So I wouldn't worry - just try to keep her positive The "learning to" should be as fun as the achieving, with any luck

Thanks AvoCado!

One suggestion I though of later today. What is her hand writing like? If she can is happy to write and can write some of her letters. I would have her write out the words she is learning. For some kids this really helps the brain connect the shapes to the sounds. I think if you keep the lessons fun and follow her lead you can't go too wrong.

I understand about not wanting it to seem like you are hothousing your daughter. I went through this this year, not wanting to get my son a math tutor this year like most of his class. And part of it was stubbornness I wanted to be able to say that I wasn't pushing him into the top math.

I am sure it was sad to have your son stop wanting to be read to out loud, it was always an important part of our bedtime routine. When my son was reading well enough, I moved to reading him chapter books 2-3 years beyond his reading level. My son read young and well but didn't really want to read anything but non-fiction in K, so until 4th grade we read a chapter out of a fiction book together.

Portia, apparently unbeknownst to you, this is exactly what the research supports as the key skill for developing solid decoding skills. Once kids have a sense that words are made of phonemes, and can segment those sounds, the next critical step is to learn phoneme manipulation, such as what you were doing with substituting initial or final consonants, and changing the medial vowel sound. That doesn't even require letter knowledge or sound-symbol correspondence. If you have the core phonological processing skills, it is pretty simple to learn reading once someone tells you which letters go with which phonemes.

And yes, there is a developmental coincidence between when kids can learn the necessary phonological processing skills and when we traditionally teach them to read. I just heard a research presentation recently with some preschoolers where they noted that the phoneme segmentation exercise they were testing as an intervention was quite effective, in only a few sessions, but only with the older preschoolers (4 yo). These were NT kids, of course.

I would work on oral PP skills first, while continuing to read aloud lots, and start with graphemes (visual representations of phonemes) once the oral phoneme manipulation is fluent. This has the advantage also of sounding silly and fun to most preschoolers. (Saying words backwards, learning pig Latin, changing words into other words, etc.)

Oh, and I also taught mine to read only by personal request. Earlier for the phonics kid, and at K age for the visual learner.

First thing is to see if your DD can blend, segment, and manipulate phonemes. If she can do those tasks with ease, she is ready for reading lessons. If she cannot but really wants to learn, you could try to work on her blending skills first. If she is developmentally ready, she'll catch on quickly.

Ktpie, I went thru the same thing with dd4.75. She knew all her alphabets by 16 mo and letter sounds soon after. She started writing at 3 and was able to spell words like oatmeal correctly. But she could not read. Not even Cvc words, not even the words she had spelt. I did not push. Then at the beginning of this year, she told me she wanted to learn to read so she can read 1000 page books. Language is not my strong suit so I had no idea how to teach her. I showed her the sight words free video on YouTube. She watched it a few times only and then started to read. But she was guessing a lot based on context and pictures and still struggling with phonetically spelt words that were not that critical to the story. So I came up with two more tricks. Everyday she has to read aloud at least 1 book. If she encounters a word she cannot read, she must raise her thumb. Then we slow down and I help her. So if it a easy word, I will ask her to sound it out slowly. If it is a long word, I will hide parts and have her decode. If it is a long sight word, I would furnish it so she can move on. Once she has read the word, she takes a second and clicks the word using her camera memory ( just like cam Jansen :)). We have done this for the last 3-4 months and now she is reading fairly fluently books that are at guided reading h and lower. So while she is not super advanced in reading, she is in a good place and growing.

Thank you all so much!! This is great food for thought. When we were reading today, I had her blend the sounds that she knew to make words. It was visibly challenging, but the look of triumph on her face each time she did it was something I'll always remember. She was so proud of her reading today