4 YO Says She Wants to Learn To Read. What Do I Teach Her?

[Anonymous]

Dick and Jane books

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t worry about phonics. Get the books of Pig and the Elephant,very simple and perfect for learning how to read at a young age. Just read to her pointing the words while youread. Very soon she will conbect words and dounds. It worked wonders with my own kid

I think this works with some kids, but highly disagree that you don't need to worry about phonics. Phonics creates the strongest readers and the most independent readers fastest. There is literally no downside to giving them an early, strong foundation in phonics, and a precocious, interested 4 year old will run with it and develop reading fluency on their own.

This. Worry about phonics. It’s crucial. Kids need to know that letters have a name and a sound that they make and that certain combination of letters make different sounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Buy the book “teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons”. I taught all my kids to read at 4 with it. It was effortless. And a great phonics for when they start teaching them poorly in school. The way school teaches without phonics is crazy.

This. Only my kids go to school in Arlington public and the way the book teaches integrates very well with what they learned in kindergarten. We used it when my oldest’s kindergarten year was interrupted by Covid and for my younger son the summer before K because he asked to learn to read. We let it be a child led activity - some weeks we’d do 1 or 2 lessons and other weeks we’d do 10 or 15 lessons. Each lesson is 5-8 minutes if you skip the writing exercises like we did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First teach upper case letters, then lower case letters, but (IMPORTANT) do not use the official name of each letter. Instead, use the sound each letter makes. Both C and K are called “kuh”. For vowels, use only the short vowel sound, not the long vowel sound.

Once they know the sounds, teach the basic Phonics sounds and also how to sound out simple phonetic words. Lots of choices for materials, but we used the “Jolly Phonics” materials. Others might also be good.

Then, go to the “Bob Books” series, doing each one in sequence. These are simplified phonetic readers to teach decoding. Have DC Read a little - 3-4 pages - each day for 7 days a week - out loud to you.

Then move to decodable readers. We used the Jolly Phonics readers for this step. Again, read a few pages every day out loud to you.

Of course, you also should be reading to DC every day. We do it just before bed, but anytime can work, as long as it is every day.

Don't add a schwa sound at the end of letter sounds. Don't say "kuh" because when kids spell they'll think they have to add a "u". Clip the consonant so you just hear the /k/ or make the /p/ sound like a small breath, not "puh"

If you get the 100 Easy Lessons book recommended by another poster, the book intro pages explain exactly what this poster is describing. The intro is not long but it teaches you how to teach your child to sound out letters and words

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid learned phonics by looking at words while I read aloud slowly and pointed. It won’t work for every single person, but it works for most.

Human brains are primed for language.

It's better if someone actually learns phonics and the rules behind language. Like adding an e to the end of words changes the vowel sound. Like ton vs tone.

Considering that schools are really struggling with illiteracy right now, humans aren't primed for reading. Language, yes.

This. It’s the fallacy of Lucy Caulkins and terribly damaging to many children who never achieve full reading fluency.

https://www.readingrockets.org/article/speaking-natural-reading-and-writing-are-not#:~:text=Human%20brains%20are%20naturally%20wired,years%20to%20master%20the%20skill.

[Anonymous]

My 4 YO asked to learn to read. DC already knew all the letters at that point. We tried "teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons” and bob books. Both never worked for us. I hated "Teach your child". That book was boring and old fashioned. DC hated bob books because characters were not attractive. So we just began to watch some letter sound / phonics videos on youtube kids using our daily screen time. When DD grasped basic phonics, we went through evan moor phonics books (well organized) and read easy books together. Try the baby books you already have. Then I bought some sight word books. Surprisingly DD liked scholastic nonfiction sight word books. After 6 months DD could read G1 level books. You never know what your child will like. But I won't recommend teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons.

[Anonymous]

We also didn’t like 100 Easy Lessons. It was way too slow and laborious for my 4 year old that had already been through 1.5 years of DC pre-K before COVID hit. That said, if YOU the parent didn’t grow up with phonics and really don’t know where to start, it is comprehensive and clear. But maybe too much so with a child that has a good foundation and picks things up quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My older child just learned to read and my younger child wants to do whatever her big brother does. No clue if she’s actual ready.

The problem is, I learned to read when “context clues” were all the rage, and we spent no time on phonics or anything that’s now considered best practice.

I’d love any suggestions for fun ways to introduce (pre?)reading skills. I don’t care if she actually reads at four, just looking for something that she’ll consider interesting.

Why pander?
Tell her she’ll learn when she’s ready.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First teach upper case letters, then lower case letters, but (IMPORTANT) do not use the official name of each letter. Instead, use the sound each letter makes. Both C and K are called “kuh”. For vowels, use only the short vowel sound, not the long vowel sound.

Once they know the sounds, teach the basic Phonics sounds and also how to sound out simple phonetic words. Lots of choices for materials, but we used the “Jolly Phonics” materials. Others might also be good.

Then, go to the “Bob Books” series, doing each one in sequence. These are simplified phonetic readers to teach decoding. Have DC Read a little - 3-4 pages - each day for 7 days a week - out loud to you.

Then move to decodable readers. We used the Jolly Phonics readers for this step. Again, read a few pages every day out loud to you.

Of course, you also should be reading to DC every day. We do it just before bed, but anytime can work, as long as it is every day.

Don't add a schwa sound at the end of letter sounds. Don't say "kuh" because when kids spell they'll think they have to add a "u". Clip the consonant so you just hear the /k/ or make the /p/ sound like a small breath, not "puh"

If you get the 100 Easy Lessons book recommended by another poster, the book intro pages explain exactly what this poster is describing. The intro is not long but it teaches you how to teach your child to sound out letters and words

This. I bought the book. It is boring and laborious but my 4 year old got through it and can read fairly advanced texts now (3 syllable works, etc.). We supplemented with the Reading Eggs app on the iPad.

[Anonymous]

Maybe I’m old, but I’d just read the most basic Dr Seuss books ( like Hop on Pop) with her.