When and how did you start teaching your kid to read?

[Anonymous]

Between in Lions on PBS is a whole little reading lesson..

[Anonymous]

Also have a new k student and we spent too much time this summer trying to 'get' her to read. She knows about 30 sight words and loves to be read to, which I do two or three times a day and will play phonics games, really likes rhyming stuff, etc but cannot sit down and read by herself. If course, she has memorized books and will read brown bear brown bear to her little sister but I am not quite ready to call it reading. I have stopped pushing it so much in the past week or two as we gear up for school. I read before k, but DH did not and I figure we will keep working with her as she learns in school.

[Anonymous]

I didn't. I don't believe in early reading, especially for kids who struggle with it, and there's plenty of evidence that waiting until they're at peak readiness leads to faster uptake, higher overall literacy and more pleasure reading as an adult. Most German schools don't start until 7-8 and their native speaker reading stats beat the crap out of ours.

We read to her a lot. She watched some PBS. That's it.

Entering sixth grade, has tested advanced since second grade and at a high school level since fourth grade, reads voraciously for pleasure.

[Anonymous]

My DS is 3 and we are starting to teach him or at least trying. We have been reading to him since he was a baby. He knows all his letters. He is starting to recognize some words like ZOO. We have a lot of preschool workbooks that have a lot of repetition like cat, hat, bat. He also plays some preschool games on the ipad that promotes letter combining. We watch Leap Frog on netflix. He also watches Super Why on tv while I take a shower in the morning.

I'm not sure what the norm is but in our circles, most kids have basic reading skills before they get to kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

I struggle with this, because I read early and still read passionately, and also, because when my four-year-old reads/ recognizes a word, she is SO happy with herself. I sort of want to give her the tools to have that joy all the time. But then, she is getting there naturally, with no real effort on my part. So other than reading to her whenever she asks, I haven't done much.

Oh, and we have the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons book. It seems fine, she followed along well for the first 15 or so lessons, but we both sort of lost interest. If she were older and having trouble, I can see that it would be a good method.

[Anonymous]

In utero...by reading out loud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Awesome book, easy to do with your kid. We started the summer before kindergarten and didn't do it every day, so finished around Christmas. It really did help my son, I don't think he would have been at the same level at the end of the year or going into first grade if we hadn't gone through the book at home.

If she isn't even recognizing all her letters yet, I would definitely do something additional at home; the teacher won't have a lot of time to work with her individually.

http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345662479&sr=8-1&keywords=teach+your+child+to+read+in+100+easy+lessons

Great book. Last September I started teaching my son when he was 4 1/2. We did a lesson everyday and then repeated the lesson the next dy for review, so it took him 200 days to finish. Now he can read easy chapter books like Frog and Toad. He starts kinder in a few days. I used to teach first grade and wanted to be the one who taught him how to read. I also realized how efficient it is to work one-on-one with a child. I sent him to a completely play-based daycare so he would not be overwhelmed doing 15 minutes of reading. We also have read to him since birth at least twice a day.

[Anonymous]

We sat down and read to them every day, pretty much from birth. We never really "taught" them anything. They just figured it out after a while and gradually started to read on their own. I guess you could call it reading in a couple thousand easy lessons.

I'd say, just read with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We sat down and read to them every day, pretty much from birth. We never really "taught" them anything. They just figured it out after a while and gradually started to read on their own. I guess you could call it reading in a couple thousand easy lessons.

I'd say, just read with them.

PP who first suggested the 100 lessons book. That's great that your kids picked it up just by being read to; I did that very early as a child and DS has friends who did as well, but it doesn't happen that way for all, or probably even most kids. My son is at the top of his class, always loved books and we read to him all the time from infancy on, but that didn't make learning to read automatic for him.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Thanks for all the great tips and suggestions. We do read to dd everyday. We prob read about three bookstore her. I wish we read to her more but we both work full time and there seems to be such limited hours in the day!
I will probably purchase the book recommended. It does seem like she may be a little behind her peers, in that she still has trouble recognizing letters and really doesn't know their sounds.
Thanks again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The posts about learning to read got me thinking. My child is going to start k this fall and so I haven't even been thinking of reading or anything like that but I would like to find out more to help her this year. Is it something your kids learned in k or something your practiced at Home? Dd still has trouble identifying many letters and almost no numbers. Are there books that helped show dc how tO put letters together to make a word? Or should I just back off and let her learn this stuff at school?

Did she go to preschool at all?

[Anonymous]

The BOB books are also great and super fun for this age group. They are these little tiny 5-6 page books and go in a progression. The first one has like 5 words. They get more difficult as the child gets more confidence. My DD loved being able to read these to herself and was super proud whenever she finished one.

Also, you might want to check out starfall.com if you are not opposed to a little screen time. The section on letters/letter sounds is fun!

[Anonymous]

Let your teachers do it, this insane, let them learn naturally. The valectorian of my senior class killed himself, he was constantly pushed his whole life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks for all the great tips and suggestions. We do read to dd everyday. We prob read about three bookstore her. I wish we read to her more but we both work full time and there seems to be such limited hours in the day!
I will probably purchase the book recommended. It does seem like she may be a little behind her peers, in that she still has trouble recognizing letters and really doesn't know their sounds.
Thanks again.

IIRC, the 100 Lessons book starts right off with sounding out words and recognizing what letters do in various contexts. It will not teach her letters and their sounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks for all the great tips and suggestions. We do read to dd everyday. We prob read about three bookstore her. I wish we read to her more but we both work full time and there seems to be such limited hours in the day!
I will probably purchase the book recommended. It does seem like she may be a little behind her peers, in that she still has trouble recognizing letters and really doesn't know their sounds.
Thanks again.

IIRC, the 100 Lessons book starts right off with sounding out words and recognizing what letters do in various contexts. It will not teach her letters and their sounds.

Not true. It starts off with some fantastic phonemic awareness activities and then introduces the letter sounds "m" and "s". The names of the letters are not taught until toward the end of the book because you don't have to know letter names to read.