My son started reading at a little over 4-years-old. While I’d like to credit his superhero brain power and brilliance, I know it’s more than that. He wanted to read and was motivated to learn, thanks to watching a few friends who are early-readers. We also worked hard to find the right tools to teach him and to allow him to also teach himself.
I often think I’m failing as a parent, but this is one thing we did right. My son showed increased interest in learning to read, we provided him with the right tools and encouraged him to practice for a few minutes each night, and after some normal frustrating and invigorating breakthroughs, it all just clicked.
We didn’t do flashcards or memorization of sight words. Our son is still young, and we let him decide the pace.
At just shy of 5-years-old Raffi has now moved onto the Magic Treehouse chapter books, reading a few pages to himself each evening. He also really enjoys listening to me read long books these days, and I notice his eyes follow along with the words. The days of skipping words and full on sentences is over! He notices. And then asks me to start over.
I’m not a teacher by trade and I have nothing but my own experience to share here, but since this worked for us I thought it might work for you.
Here are the 5 books/book series I credit to teaching my son to read (oh, and his natural brilliance too, of course):
1. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (Amazon, $15)
Buy this book. Seriously, this is the key to teaching your child to read. Someone who I consider to be an excellent parent and who homeschooled her children suggested this book to me, and I am so thankful. It is boring and tedious, but each lesson only takes about 10-15 minutes. The book instructs the teacher on exactly what to say and how to say it, and builds upon each learning step naturally. Here’s an example of what the book looks like. You, the teacher, say what’s in red.
2. BOB books (Amazon, $10-12)
Boy are these books boring. But they are so thrilling for someone just starting to read. Each set has several small books with only a few pages and only one short sentence on each page. When my son finished reading his first book all by himself, the sense of accomplishment could be seen on his face, in the way he carried himself, in his great big smile. A sample of one full sentence in these early books is “Mat sat.” These are great beginning readers.
3. Dr. Suess’s Beginning Books Collection (Amazon, $27.07)
I still remember the very first book I read by myself, and it was Fox in Socks. I read my copy so many times my book actually fell apart. Turns out Dr. Suess books are timeless, and all my kids really enjoy them too. Did you know that Dr. Suess books are also great early readers? In fact, Green Eggs and Ham was written on a bet and contains exactly 50 words. That makes it a great beginner’s book! If you love Dr. Suess and want to learn more fun facts, including the full story about the bet, check out these 10 fun facts to celebrate Dr. Suess’ birthday.
4. Pete the Cat I Can Read! books (Amazon, about $3.50)
Raffi and lots of his little friends love early readers. We are partial to the I Can Read! ones. Raffi loves reading Pete the Cat: Play Ball! among other books. These have beautiful pictures, big words, and simple sentences great for an early reader. We started off buying these, but as they became less challenging we switched to chapter books and haven’t looked back.
5. Magic Tree House series (Amazon, $2.97)
This series is a great match for early chapter book readers. Each book follows the same basic formula, and the vocabulary is fairly simple. Raffi loves following along with his eyes as I read a few pages aloud, and then he takes over and reads a few pages to me. He has now decided that in our new house he will build his own tree house for himself and his sisters and it will be magical too.
While Raffi has mastered reading and is working on more challenging books week after week, we haven’t made much progress with writing. He will spell anything out for me to write for him, but getting him to write anything himself is like pulling teeth. We are working on it, but he isn’t very motivated and I’m not pushing it. I still love these 5 games to have fun teaching your child to write, and we play them when he’s in the mood.
But to be honest, most of the time, if my son isn’t building with Legos or kicking a ball around, you’ll find him snuggled on the couch devouring his latest Magic Tree House book. I love that I have a little bookworm.
Share your tips for teaching a child to read.
Leave a commentImages: Sabrina Garibian, Amazon
