There's obviously not just one method or age to teach a child to read, but this is the way WE decided to teach our preschooler to read.
The very first step in learning to read is being read to a lot. A lot, a lot! Camden has always been obsessed with books, so getting him interested wasn't difficult. When I read to him, he would demand that I follow along with my finger as I read so that he could see the word as he heard it out loud.
Last summer, Camden was really interested in learning to read, and kept asking me to teach him. I was, honestly, terrified to teach him to read. It seemed like such a daunting task, and obviously a very important life skill to learn. It's very overwhelming to start from scratch!
After reading tons of positive reviews, we decided to try out Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. The first 10 or so lessons were terribly painful. I felt like I was fumbling through, hesitating too much in between sections, and couldn't get Camden to take it seriously.
To encourage Camden, I created this incredibly basic sticker chart book. A total of 100 lessons, and after each group of 10 lessons, we celebrated! Sometimes, we celebrated with ice cream, or a new small lego set, or with some special one-on-one time. He was very motivated to add new stickers to his chart each day, and it helped him learn to count. After our reading lesson each day, he would flip through the sticker book and count to 100. He effortlessly learned to count to 100 from this.
Once he had learned enough sounds to put together a few words, the reading lessons changed from being torturous to enjoyable. I remember very clearly, the day he learned to read, "read it." He read the very short sentence, jumped on his chair, announced, "I'm a reader now!!" Then he ran over to the bookshelf to grab his very favorite science book. He was disappointed he couldn't magically read EVERY book, but it was still the confidence boost he needed. Knowing he could read just a few words helped him know that he could continue to learn more words. From this point on, Camden would beg us to do more reading lessons.
When I first got this lesson book, I flipped to the end lessons and thought, "there is no way he will be able to read these passages in just 100 days." I stand corrected!!
We supplemented with these easy-to-read BOB Books. Each page has a very short sentence. It was great to have a section of books that Camden could read from if I wasn't able to sit down with him. It was very encouraging for him to be able to read a whole book!
Once we finished our 100 lessons, we moved onto the level 1 Step Into Reading books. I looked at a lot of leveled readers, and most of them were still too difficult for Camden to read. The Step Into Reading books were easier and they interested him more because there are a lot of books with popular cartoon characters.
The pre-reader National Geographic books are also great! My boys love non-fiction books, and it is great for Cam to have science books he can read on his own.
Now, he's reading anything he can get his hands on. This shark book has been his favorite for a while. We've stopped following any kind of lesson plan or workbook, and instead we make sure to read a lot through out the day. We have a designated reading time after lunch, but that's rarely the only time we read. Most of the books we read from are from the library, we only buy a book if it's one we absolutely love and read over and over again.
Happy Reading!
