How do you actually start teaching a child to read?!

[mummynoseynora]

I know this sounds like a stupid question, and I am jumping the gun a bit posting in this area (dd 3.9) but thought it the most appropriate place..

DD recognises most letters - but not all, and some sounds ie M for mummy.... she is recognising / noticing other letters in words too eg she will look at 'mummy' and say there are 3 M in there and a Y like in my name iyswim

I think with some guidance that she could be starting to read within 6 months or so but I want to go about it the right way and not just set her up for confusion when she starts school!

We read a lot of stories together and she likes trying to write, she can do her name and tries her brothers too with help on the spellings....

where would you start? Any teachers out there care to share how they do it at school

bump ?

We have just started with pictures with the word underneath e.g picture of a tap with the letters underneath and we then sound out the letters. Only do it for a few minutes at a time. All 3 letter words. Made sure we dont bang on about it just try and be casual and fun with it. Also when out and about drop it into conversation " oh look at the bin over there" and then sound out the letters b i n. Hope that makes sense. Very slow but seems to be working and DD shows interest in learning more.
Got phonics books also.

Teach her the sounds of each letter (phonics) and then blend these sounds together to form words e.g. she may know the names of the letters C A T but if she knows their sounds she will be able to 'sound out' the word for herself.

Once she masters the letter sounds you can move on to the sounds of pairs of letters e.g. th, ch, ph, so she'll sound out TH A T etc.

Some words though will have to be memorized e.g the, said.

Sorry if this ends as a x post

When I taught my kids, the UK was in a phase of using a scheme called Letterland www.letterland.com/ - (which due to some name changes of characters, is now called Classic Letterland). I had the basic ABC book, and they learnt the alphabet via that and a peg puzzle to help them connect the pictures with the simple written letter. Once they knew all the Letterland, we did simple three letter words - phonic-based words, like 'hat' 'pig' 'mop' - on paper/chalkboard and sounded out the sounds and showed how they elided to make the word. I would draw pictures when I could (!) and then ask them to sound out the letters in the word or write them. (I think some schools now use Jolly Phonics if they use a phonics scheme but in our day, they were using Letterland, and now mine are grown-up mostly, they still have happy memories of Clever Cat and Munching Mike etc.)

The Letterland scheme helped with vowel sounds that change when "e" is added, and how "h" can make different sounds when other Letterland characters are combined ("stand next to") with Hairy Hat Man; or why Quarrelsome Queen always has her umbrella with her. From there, we did simple four letter words and beyond - I had a huge margarine tub of key words: I would add more as they learned them, and they got to choose a handful to read every time we did "reading", as well as playing with letters and sounds.

To begin formal reading I used the Ladybird "Key Words Learning to Read" series about Tom & Kate - www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Play-Read-Me-Murray/dp/0721416160 - this is the first book of 16. Unfortunately looking on the Ladybird website they seem to have mothballed this series and reprinted the old Peter & Jane "key word" series. But you could get most from Amazon or second-hand sellers - I taught several of mine to read using the Tom/Kate books and they loved them. We would do a page or two a day, and go over what we had learned the previous day. When they were older, they would read three or four pages. This series takes what has been learned of phonics already and adds in some basic word recognition - words like "two" and "laugh" which can't be deciphered by phonics. Mine began learning Letterland alphabet at 3-ish, and were reading by 4.5 yrs (though obviously not advanced reading, but enough to be able to communicate in writing as well - we practised writing alongside learning the alphabet, three-letter words etc.) Mine were all keen to do the learning, which was a relief.

How about this idea from a one-time Montessori teacher? It is a great idea to start with word-building. Find some letters, say like the ones you get to stick on the fridge, but lower case ones if you can. If your child knows the phonetic sounds for each of them, then fine, if not then you could start - mmmm for mmmummy, mmmmat, mmmug, etc.
Then the next bit is the really fun bit - get hold of some little objects which have three letters and are simple and phonetic eg, pig, dog, cat, mat, cup, pot, hat, NOT owl, bee, tree, (those sounds will come later).
Put the objects in a little box or tin and with your child, take them out one by one. Ask your child to listen to the first sound in the word. So say you take out a pig, ask what do we hear first when we say pig, emphasising the sound p , yes that's right p, now let's look at these letters and see if we can find a p. You find the letter p and put it down. The say what do we hear next when we say the word pig, emphasising the i, ( you should sound the i like i in ink, ie phonetically), then what do we hear at the end of the word pig? emphasising the sound g etc, Hey presto, we made a word p i g ! Now what else have we got in our tin/box ah yes a dog! etc etc

God that was hard to describe, but hope you and your child enjoy this exercise. Or you could always look up Montessori on the internet and look for the moveable alphabet, the sandpaper letters and the pink box exercises - good luck!

Just wanted to add what may be obvious, but make sure you only do this stuff when your child wants to, so it never becomes a chore. Also reading bedtime stories you can point to the odd word when you read it aloud, also cereal packets etc. It sounds very much as if your child is in what Maria Montessori called her "sensitive period" for letters and reading, meaning this is when she's very keen and the best time for her to learn. Another thing that may be obvious is that you let her see you reading for pleasure yourself and that will reinforce her love of books and reading.
I am a long way off from this now as my daughters are 19 and 16, but they are both grade A* star students and one is studying english literature with creative writing at university!

Oh, looking further into it, they do seem to still do the Tom & Kate books, just a newer edition - here is Book Three - www.amazon.co.uk/Read-Me-Space-Boat-Ladybird/dp/1846463602/ref=pd_sim_b_4 on Amazon. £2.50 each one.

We make words out of dots on paper. She joins the dots and she sees if she can say the word. Se is 3.5 and we have about 50% hit rate on common words.

Yes, you can download "dotted fonts" these days to print out "dotty words" to learn how to write. But dotting it yourself on paper is fun because the child can watch the letters forming and beginning to take a guess at the word as you do them.

If you want to use the computer the starfall website has a lot of early phonics stuff. You need to be comfy with the american accent though.

When my DS started reading at school, they used Jolly Phonics. He would come home with a sheet of paper with the letter "a", a picture of an ant and a box showing the action of running your fingers up your arm. the sheet would aslo have the dotted letter written several times at the bottom.

It was really useful to have the actions. S was making a slithering snake movement with your arm. I've forgotten the rest!

Then he moved onto two-letter sounds like Ch, Sh, Oi, Oo, etc.

Blending packs from school helped. They contained cards with the words spelt out - L - I - ST, P - O - ST. we had to touch each segment, say the phonic and then try to say the word.

Pretty soon he was sight-reading a lot of words and could read simply books with lots of three-letter words.

Most important to make it fun. DS would rather complete one of the Phonic exercise books than read a bedtime story - I think I've produced a nerd!

Thanks for the advice everyone, some really useful stuff there!

ToniSoprano in particular the wording for how you help them sound it out was great thanks... and I love the idea with the box of things and the letters, she will like that!

I forgot I had bought the jolly phonics 'jolly stories' book so we read two stories from that at bedtime, then followed the shape of the letters and did the actions - which she loved! She knew all but one out of about 12 letters / sounds - I was suprised she actually knew the letter names for some too as we have always used the phonetic sound with her so was really pleased with that...

Is it something I should be doing on a daily basis with her?

sarahfreck I love the idea of the online resource as she always wants to go on my laptop, but the US accent would drive me mad I am afraid - know of any uk ones?

Online phonics:

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/watch/alphablocksclips/
BBC TV Alphablocks programme clips for children

Jolly Phonics Songs on YouTube:

HTH

ahhhh she LOVES alpha blocks!!!!! Thanks for those!

I read and read and read with dd. She loves books. I only realised very recently that she can actually read. We had a brand new book from the library and I watched her start sounding out the words in it.

I have bugger all idea how she did it. Osmosis?

ooooh clever dd SoH!!! Will keep up the books too and just hope at the same time! How old is your dd ?

ShowOfHands, some children do just work out the phonics for themselves, but it can't be depended on! Most children need to be taught.

Even those who have figured it out may not have completely cracked the code, so don't think that any phonics teaching she may get a school is a waste of time.

Also, just check from time to time that she is sounding out words and not just memorising a few familiar ones...(give her a word she 'knows' in a context other than the book she usually reads it in; if she can still recognise it, you have a reader!)

SoH DS2 did exactly the same thing. I have no idea when he actually learnt to read, it just kind of happened. He is now 6 and a very avid reader.

Unfortunately DS1 and DD don't share his talent, they had to work at learning to read!

I used to pick out interesting highlighted words when I was reading to her. Lots of toddler books will have sound effects in big or funny print - BANG, POP etc and they're usually phonically decodable - so I'd spell them out as I saw them, and later on as she got the hang of the letters I'd ask her to spell them out to me, later on I might ask if she could read out speech bubbles (usually very simple sentences).
I'd literally do this for two or three words per story, fifteen, thirty seconds at a time as part of a twenty minute bedtime story session. The key is a) never overdo it, never let them get bored of it and b) get into the habit of spotting phonically decodable words and using them as micro-teaching opportunities as they arise.
I also read them the Ladybird Phonics books, which introduce the phonemes in a nice logical way, but are also lots of fun to read.
That said, my two would probably have taught themselves to read anyway, they're that type. DH was taught to read age 3 by his 5 yr old brother regurgitating his lessons when he got home from school.

Oh I'm not telling anybody else how to do it or saying that phonics are a waste of time or will be when she starts school. I was just remarking that she did it on her own and there was no 'teaching' involved. My Mum says I was the same though so maybe she's genetically predisposed to being utterly stubborn and working things out herself.

And it was a brand new book (she'd never seen it before). We've picked up lots of things since realising it, shown them to dd and she has read them to us. Completely out of context stuff and words she probably hasn't read before.

She's 3.5.

oh wow SOH!!! (and the others that have had it) thats so cool!

I think half my problem is I am a BIG reader... always have been, so I am really keen for her to learn and to love books like I do - started reading her bedtime stories at 1 week old

when pg with DS I read her much more during the day as I could sit still, so think I will start doing some when he has his naps too... I read her a chapter of the first harry potter book the other day - she loved it although not sure if its appropriate

.

Making your own books with her is a good idea using photos and pictures from magazines with simple captions about things she knows. She will then enjoy reading them to other people.
Also you can use pictures of simple 3 letter words that can be sounded out phonically such as hen, pig. Stick on card with the word on the back Read the word and turn over to see if they are right. If they are they keep the card. When they get better at it use an egg timer and see how many they can get in the time. Design little games like that and play for fun e.g. make your own lotto.
(play with the individual letter sounds first)

Apart from the phonics stuff we got mostly from Letterland,I'd say best advice is have a cosy time with YOU reading. Get him or her hooked on books! Then you'll have given them something for a lifetime.

My kids poured over the Letterland ABC book. Don't know what it was about that book but my youngest kept wanting to hear it again and again. Then he wanted to write his name - Christopher which is 11 letters long (!). And he didn't want just Chris, but he got it because he remembered who in letterland was next to who. Thhe handwriting songs on CD were a great way to get his letterls the right way round too -especially b and d. I remember the d song: draw Dippy Duck's back, go round her tum, Go up to her head,then down you come.