anyone know how to start teaching a 4 yr old to read

[graciem]

my dd1 starts primary school in sept. she is in the preschool and i feel she is bright. she has term targets like recognising,ordering and writing numbers 1-20, and adding groups of numbers together which she meets. but we havent yet started trying reading. she does love books and we have stories everyday. as its half term i cant ask her teachers and she is kean to know words but i dont want to go about trying to teach her in the wrong way. any suggestions would be great. :)

Letter recognition is the first step. You can't read if you don't know the letters!

I'd wait for school and in the mean time concentrate on reading to her.
Or start with some jolly phonics type stuff if you really must. But tbh if she is keen once she gets to school she will fly with it.

just keep reading to her

nothing wrong with telling her what a word says if she asks but leave the teaching for school

have you looked a alphablocks on cbeebies website? They give the correct sounds for the letters

hi all thanks for replying. she is great with letter recognition and has been doing phonics for 6mths now. if i spell a word for her she can write it and spell and write her full name. with reading do i concentrate on a word at a time or a whole story.

Watching with interest. Why do people suggest parents wait until they start school?

I could read before I started school and I believe it started my love of English and helped my education. I know my mum had to battle with school to give me more challenging books once I started but DC permitting I am still a bookworm today.

So can someone explain what the reasoning is behind the advice to wait please?

Mine learnt through 'Letterland' books, posters and flash cards about a year before they started school.

both my DD could read before school and I didn't teach either of them

we shared stories, we read out signs in the supermarket and we read instructions, packets -everything! but I didn't do flash cards, work book or any type of structure

my DDs weren't the only ones that started reception being able to read but the teachers noticed a big difference between the ones who had been taught from a 'scheme' as they struggled with phonics, and so much of what they do is phonics based some of the children struggled to transfer the skills and got frustrated not that we stand around gossiping, I've known some of the mums in DD's reception since antenatal groups and we talk to each other about our own DCs, not other people's

Hit the library and get out some first reading books. Follow the words with your finger and try getting her to sound out some of the easier words. Like c-a-t with phonic sounds. See if she can recognise it again later. if she enjoys it then carry on with more challenging books. If she gets bored then stop and just read to her with no pressure for her to read to you.

I use a book called "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons". It takes you right from scratch, and tells you how to do it. DD1 is just last week turned 4 and I can hear her reading on her own with some of the other phonics books. She quite enjoys the fact that she can get one up on DD2!!!

I don't think 'leave it to school' is the answer. Show her the letters and get her to understand the sounds that go with them. Show her how to write her own name because they all find that fascinating. Then simple three-letter words, getting them to point out familiar words in books they enjoy, looking at signs in the street, newspapers etc. Anywhere you find words there is an opportunity to sound them out. I think it's lovely when children show an interest and they should be encouraged every step.

You need to be careful to teach her the same letter sounds as they use in school. For example, most adults were taught that the letter m says muh whereas it actually says mmmm. If you teach her to say muh, nuh, puh, etc she will have to relearn it when she starts school.

That's one reason why teachers prefer parents to wait.

Another is that children need to learn other skills for reading like relating the story to the pictures so they take in the sense of what they are reading. Lots of children are given books without words when they start the reading scheme because narrating the story themselves is an important skill. Parents whose children can already sounds out words often get frustrated by this and complain that the child needs harder books.

It would be a very strange and particularly dogmatic teacher that tried to 're-teach' a child who could already read just because they sounded 'muh' instead of 'mmm'. It would be a very system-oriented teacher that refused to give a child more challenging books if they were clearly able to comprehend a storyline already.. There are many different approaches to reading, all have merit, and children are quite capable of understanding and learning in more than one way explained by more than one person.

My children could read before starting school and they experienced no problems whatsoever. We used letterland stuff at home and they really enjoyed it. They both left primary school gaining level 5's in their SATs and have been predicted A's and B's in their GCSE's despite both being boys born in the very, very late summer.

"It would be a very strange and particularly dogmatic teacher that tried to 're-teach' a child who could already read just because they sounded 'muh' instead of 'mmm'."

The children would learn the letter sounds in small groups and as a whole class as well as individually. Therefore the child would be expected to forget the old way she learned the sounds and join in with the way her peers were saying them. The teacher couldn't be expected to give a child 1 to 1 just because they had already learned to read.

"It would be a very system-oriented teacher that refused to give a child more challenging books if they were clearly able to comprehend a storyline already."

I know plenty of parents whose children have had to do exactly this as the teacher needs to see for themselves that the child can narrate a story from the pictures. They also need to see evidence that the child can understand what they are reading before they allow them to move to more challenging books. It's not unreasonable but many parents find this hard to handle and complain that the child is not being challenged. What they don't understand is that the child can create a challenging and complicated storyline from a picture book.

I'm not saying that it's right that teachers tell parents not to teach their child to read. I helped both of mine to learn. I am suggesting reasons why a busy teacher might prefer it that way.

Read to her with your finger moving smoothly under the words of each line across each page. Choose books that will take a little time to read, such as Beatrix Potter titles, or Winnie the Pooh stories. These have the advantage of a wide vocabulary as well as sweet illustrations, likeable characters and an interesting plot. When you have to spend a little time sitting together to get to the end of the story your child will be focusing for longer, and exposed to the written word for longer. Short books don't offer this.

Be prepared to read the same book over and over and over and over and over. DD2 and I both knew The Tale of Mrs Tiggywinkle by heart after a few weeks, but it was her favourite story. I can still recite The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies.

You should also read children's poetry to her, again with your finger moving line by line. Poetry is a good idea because of the rhythm and the rhyme -- she will see patterns of spellings and sounds. It is especially good for vowel sounds.

labels- lower case letters- chair,wall,door etc combined with sounds of letters-begin with her name and Mummy and Daddy-she will soon have a small reading vocabulary which will boost her confidence but honestly I'd leave most of it for school.

Start by putting labels on your furniture. Use post-its and write words on everything then as you go to fridge, television, bed, light- keep pointing out the words as you open the 'fridge', get the 'cups', open the 'door', just keep pointing them out until she begins to realise the funny patterns have a function. Even give each other name badges when in the house. Point out that yours says 'mammy' and point out what her's says.