Teaching my 4 year old to read

[Anonymous]

Hello, I am trying to teach my 4 year old son to read using the method outlined in the book “Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons”. My son already knows/recognizes the letters and knows all the sounds, however he is having difficulty blending. He can sound out the word “Ca-Ah-Ta” for “Cat” but cant blend it to say Cat. What resources do you recommend I use to teach him blending. Do you have any particular flashcards or apps etc that you used that worked. Anything that would make the process fun for him would go a long way. We both are getting frustrated with the book and he isn’t enjoying it.

[Anonymous]

Please stop. He’s too young. You’re going to just upset him, because he isn’t ready. You need to let his brain mature. What’s the rush? Just read to him and let him learn to love books. He doesn’t need to learn to read ahead of the others his age. It’s not a competition.

[Anonymous]

He's not too young. Try other methods.

[Anonymous]

I tried teaching my son at 4.5 using the same book (I used it with success with my older child when she was 5). I stopped for the exact same reason - he couldn’t blend. I waited 6 months and we restarted the book last month and we’re about 30 lessons in. He’s blending without issue. Just give your child more time, he’s not ready yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I tried teaching my son at 4.5 using the same book (I used it with success with my older child when she was 5). I stopped for the exact same reason - he couldn’t blend. I waited 6 months and we restarted the book last month and we’re about 30 lessons in. He’s blending without issue. Just give your child more time, he’s not ready yet.

Me again. When we tried at 4.5 my son and I were both very frustrated. Now he looks forward to his “reading lesson” everyday. I didn’t use anything - I completely backed off over the past six months. I just gave him more time to mature.

[Anonymous]

Fwiw I tried at age 4, stopped, then DD learned in K and is now two grade levels ahead

[Anonymous]

Stop. Your kid will learn to read. You’re frustrating him and teaching him that learning and YOU are things to avoid.

[Anonymous]

Stop! Truly. This isn't helpful.

[Anonymous]

If it is getting frustrating, then I would wait a bit. See how things are going by mid kindergarten and then if you are still concerned, seek more advice.

What you would do with that issue though is called continuous blending where you would make the sounds longer and connected which gives them a scaffold to blend the sounds together... c......a.....t....... (make sure you don't add uhh to the end of the sounds because that confuses some kids). You can also try it with a two sound word as well.

Don't make it into a bad experience with your kids though because it is developmental...

[Anonymous]

I agree with stopping for a while. I have one who taught herself at 3 and one who needed tutoring from 6-8. They are both successful college grads.

[Anonymous]

Just read to your child.

[Anonymous]

We used Bob books with my 4 year old. But she was doing preschool in Spanish where early phonics are all syllable based. They’d pick a letter of the week and learn all of the vowel combination sounds for that consonant. So ma, me, mi, mo, mu, etc.

I agree that being able to blend letter sounds just sort of clicks, and if it’s not clicking, then take a break and give it more time. Maybe try the consonant vowel pairs first to see if that helps it click.

But 4 is very young. Mine asked to learn to read and it was the pandemic, so we had time to kill. But she really was the first of her friends, though 4 years later everyone else is totally caught up and you can’t tell who learned at 4 or 6 years old.

[Anonymous]

Reading Eggs is a good, low stress app tge works. We do it plus “Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons” (on a break at about lesson 75 because it is getting hard) plus Bob books. Kid is almost 5.

[Anonymous]

I agree with others to please stop. He isn't ready if the blending isn't clicking. I say this as someone with a 5 year old who honestly did not get it at 5, he wasn't ready and we didn't push it. Now he is in Kindergarten and it is amazing to see how his brain is SO MUCH MORE ready for it! He is immediately getting the sounds, blending, you can tell he is ready. And they are teaching all of these things week by week in kindergarten (letter sounds, blending), there is really no reason to put pressure on yourself or him now. Let him play this year. He will be so well prepared for kindergarten already knowing letters and sounds. Drop it and you will see him flourish in kindergarten when the time is right.

[Anonymous]

And please know the research really supports this not being helpful. There are some kids that just learn to read early pretty naturally. There are various reasons for this. But most kids aren't ready until 5-6 and there are actually major cons to pushing a kid who isn't ready because they will start to be frustrated. I don't even push my 5 year old kindergartener. This weekend he was interested in trying out some decoding books, we had fun doing it. Then yesterday I asked if he wanted to do it and he said no can you please just read to me. So I did. in a few days I'm sure he'll be ready to try again. But it really can do harm to push kids when they are learning too early.