From ABCs to reading their first word – the right way of learning to READ

There is so much information around about that often we get confused and how to start teaching our kids to learn to read.

And I have been asked this question several time that my child knows letter sounds what should I teach next or my child can read CVC words so what should I teach him next.

The answer to all these question is in this post where I share with you the right sequence of teaching your kids to read which is also backed by science of reading.

#1 – Know the letter names

The letters Aa – Zz are like symbols with each having its own name and the ability to read & write greatly depends on this skill.

You can start teaching this at toddler stage – 2.5 – 3 yrs old and should really be done with fun learning activities because we all know how curious our toddler can be.

And it is best to teach upper and lower case letters together . It will be easier for kids to learn and will save more time because then they can directly move to phonics.

#2 – Practice Phonics

One of the vital skill needed to be able to read is knowing the letter sounds aka ‘Phonics’ . This skill has to be really concrete in order to read words correctly.

You can read more detailed information in this post – What is Phonics ?

#3 – Blending the sounds together

Now part of reading words involves knowing the letter sounds and joining them together to read the word also known as ‘Blending’

This skill needs a lot of practice as it can take some time for kids to understand and learn but once they learn it reading is going to be so much more fun and it will raise their confidence as well in reading.

You can download this FREE resource to help your kids practice blending – ‘Blending Mat’

#3 – Start reading CVC words

Once your child has mastered letter sounds and blending it’s now the most. exciting time for them i.e. being able to read their first word.

We always begin reading with CVC words as they are short and easy decodable words and do not have any tricky phonic rules.

Now to do this effectively practice sight words with one vowel at a time. For example – we pick short vowel ‘a’ first so we would be practicing – at , an , ag , ad and ap words and then move on to the next vowel and so on.

#4 – Learn to identify short vowel sounds

This skill goes hand in hand with phonics and CVC words but I still added this as a placeholder as it is always a good idea to practice short vowel sounds – a , e, i ,o , u.

Help them identify vowel sounds in a word . For example – you say a word like – cat then they will tell which vowel sound is in the word. You can also practice by saying all the short vowel sounds loud and making your funny song about it.

#5 – Practice Digraphs sounds and read Digraph words

Digraphs are simply two letters together that make one sound like ‘ch’ as in chip , ‘sh’ as in ship , ‘th’ as in thumb, ‘ck’ as in duck and ‘wh’ as in where.

This can be introduced to kids when they are capable to blend and read 3 letter words.