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Hi - first apologies as I did not know what board to post this question on so have put it on severak biards in the hope of an answer.

I have a question about learning to read. My LO (just 3) can now sound out a sentence super fast phonetically. I think after several weeks of this she is getting bored doing this and I therefore want to encourage her to go to the next stage. She is quite quick - I told her for example the other day when we were looking at the word ?moon? on the alphabet chart in her room that when you see two o?s together i.e. ?oo? that this makes the oooooo? sound. I only need to tell her once and she remembers it. She can now look at her word chart on the wall of her bedroom and she says ?P?I?G? is pig but is obviously helped by the picture of the pig above the word although today she said PIG is pig while she was in a different room.

Can anyone tell me how children actually learn to read? how for e.g. does the blending for words start? Do children learn their first words off by heart so to speak ? i.e. they don?t learn how to read out all words at the beginning but rather know from memory what the word dog looks like etc. In which case shall I get her to memorise certain basic words? Are there any particular websites that can explain how this works? Are there any threads on here that go into detail on this? Or are there special books to help children at this stage of their development?

Thanks all for your help.

Hi. There are a list of 'High Frequency Words' that children are tuaght to read on sight- not by sounding out. You can get a list of these on many websites. Just stick High Frequency Words List into a search engine. In school, they don't start learning these until they are a little older than your LO, but if you think she's ready then go for it! This website http://www.firstschoolyears.com/literacy/word/other/hfw/hfw.htm
has lists of the words and also if you scroll down, some online activities. This is a start anyway!
Learning phonics is equally as important though so you should keep this up with other words. Again, you can get lists of the blends they learn online, possible on www.primaryresources.co.uk, go to the English section, then word level and spellings and phonics. Just go at her pace. Good Luck xxx

Take a look at PHONICS
There are very few words that children need to learn by sight (the government has withdrawn the HFW from recent guidance)

Some children do memorise words (and even whole books) and that is an early skill and is useful alongside good phonics teaching

THREE!!! - wow wow wow - congratulaions little one on great reading skills and to you too!!!!

After establishing the MOST COMMON WAYS of reading each letter and sh, ch and th you will need to move onto cvc words.

CVC words are consonant vowel consonant words that can be sounded out as long as you say d. o. g. not deeer oooorrr geeeer. e.g pig p.i.g , hen h.e.n, man M.a.n, jam j.a.m etc...

The best way to teach and to learn them is by putting them in rhyming groups.

I think these books are fun fun fun and do the grouping for you....

www.amazon.co.uk/Mig-Pig-Rhyme-read-Stories/dp/0751353515/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246047330& sr=8-2

Your moon comment was very good but because English is a bit of a bugger this is not the only way of writing and reading "oooooo" - I am a big fan of THRASS for explaining this... but this is for further down he line...

Ontop of this reading is more than simply de-coding letters. It is about understanding what is being read and what subtle reading skills to put into practice - Read read read read and read wih your lo and that will have a big impact too.... I'm guessing by the fast she is so in the know at three you have been reading to her since she was in the womb or with her fab skills maybe when she was just a glint in her Daddy's eye!

Try to start a bit of a word at the time, by saying the first bit (up to the vowel) and getting your dd to blend the last bit

i.e. pi - g ca - t

then move on to p - i - g c - a - t

try a variant of i-spy "...something beginning with ca" or "pi "

Also, check that you are getting the sounds right (obvious point I know) so ssss not suh and t (sort of clicking sound) not tuh. This makes the sounds easier to blend. I think there are web sites where you can listen to the sounds

I taught DS1 how to blend this way when he was just 3, and he can read well now (at almost 4), by a mixture of sounding out and word recognition

Look up Read Write Inc or Jolly Phonics (which has materials easily available in ELC.

Do not go teaching High Frequency Words by sight. Schools should have stopped doing this in 2005/s after the Rose Review. Only a very few, non-decodable (at that stage of reading)are taught by sight.

Start with learning the simple letter to sound relationships. Eg, the letter 's' represents the souns /s/, the letter 'i' represents the short soind /i/ and so on

When she knows the simple ones and is reading and blending then move on to the digraphs (where 2 letters represent 1 sound) etc

The Read Write stuff is great and has lots of graded reading books to practise with.

Bob books are good at this stage you can get them on Amazon