Tips on teaching a 3 year old to read?
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Anonymous
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My 3 yr old is obsessed with books. Memorizes them so she can "read" them on her own and to her stuffed animals. Also gets frustrated when she doesn't know the words in a newer book.
So while it seems kind of early, we've started the process of teaching her to read. She can identify all her upper case letters and probably a third to half of her lower case. She also knows about half of the sounds that go with the letters. We've started taking a few of those sounds/letters and showing her how to sound out simple three-letter words like "cat". Any other tips for things we can do (beyond, obviously, reading to her)? We don't really care if she learns to read quickly, we just want to give her skills to work on because she is so interested in books. She was supposed to start PK this year but is not because of Covid, so we're doing our best to supplement at home. |
Anonymous
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Seriously no three year old should be taught to read. Let her enjoy books and answer her questions.
Some kids will teach themselves to read at a young age. There are multiple posts on this board of kids using BOB books for this. That said I had 2 3 year old kids obsessed with books. One was reading essentially by 3 and at 6 could read the New York Times. No teaching. The other is 5 and can read sight words after lots of teaching starting only when child was ready for it at 5. Most important thing is to encourage love of learning reading and books at the age of 3 rather than specific skill mastery. |
Anonymous
| Just make it like play with wooden or plastic letters. If you allow screens, have her listen to online books that highlight the text while reading it. I wouldn’t do this in any formal way at her age. Just read and play with letters and sounds. Do lots of rhyming, and say BAT and ask her to say it without the B sound, and then to say it with the F sound in the beginning and not the B sound. Look up phonemic awareness activities for preschoolers and have fun with her. |
Anonymous
| Don’t. |
Anonymous
| Bob books |
Anonymous
This. Op, I learned on my own at 3 as did my cousin. Some kids do this. Just let her enjoy books. |
Anonymous
| For those saying don't, can you say why? She has expressed an interest and seems frustrated with her current level of understanding. Doesn't feel like there is any harm in pointing her in the right direction. I get not wanting to pressure her or take the joy out of it, but what's the harm in just incorporating some reading skills into her usual playing? |
Anonymous
Thank you that's a good suggestion regarding the rhyming. She loves music and singing too so that's easy to incorporate. |
Anonymous
Ok, will check these out. This is the first I've heard of them. |
Anonymous
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Just stop. You are robbing your daughter of the gift of learning to read on her own.
Plus any parent pushing their 3 year old to read is going to come off as trying too hard. |
Anonymous
| I am the outlier here. I taught my kids to read at around three. I started early playing with letters and the sounds they make. Then I started spelling words using the consonant-vowel-consonant words like bat, hat, sat, sit, pit, pot, hot... Then did blends st, th, nt. I always pointed out environmental words. Followed words with my finger when I read. |
Anonymous
| If she’s really ready and amazingly ahead of the game, she will naturally just pick it up. So my tip would be to read a lot with her and nothing else. I do really love the Leap Frog phonics videos/toys too. My kids learned 15 years ago and I can still hear “the a says ah, every letter makes a sound the a says ah”. |
Anonymous
| Don't. Seriously don't. |
Anonymous
| There's a very different skill set between the memorization and the decoding. Just because she does one doesn't mean she is ready for the other. And that's okay. |
Anonymous
| I like the Letter Factory video by Leapfrog mentioned by 17:16. The a says.... song. |