Reading for Kids

STEP 2: Teaching your child to read.

Do not add letters unless your child has learned the first 3 letters. After they have learned a, s, and t, add the 2 letters p and c. Repeat the activities in Step 2. If your child seems bored with the games, change them. Keep the learning time short and positive. 10 to 15 minutes max.

You need to also add this phonemic activity. Say words slowly to your child, separating each sound and leaving a pause between each sound. Explain to your child that all of the words you say will be animals. Use the following words: dog, goat, mouse, cat, pig, bird, lion, fox, duck, fly, bug, ant, hen, bat. Your child should be able to blend the sounds you say into the word.

If your child is struggling, reduce it to 2 sounds. Example: d og. Continue with the words listed above. The next session ask your child to try and blend the 3 sounds again. If you need more words, text me for a list. This is a critical skill they must be able to do.

To practice the sounds of the letters, write the lower case letters on index cards. Play simple board games or more physical games with your child. Show them a card with every turn. Ask them to say the sound each time they take a turn. Do this for several days. They may not remember them from one day to the next. That is fine. Continue to review the sounds of the letters ( a,s,t).

Also ask your child to write the letter when you say the sound. Prompt them if needed by giving an example, showing the card or writing it so they can trace it. Make it fun. They can write it in sand, salt, pudding etc. make sure they start at the top.

After speaking to thousands of parents over the last 22 years, they tell me they are tired of sight words. Schools give them list after list for their child to memorize. This is not a good method for struggling readers.

Your brain does not have enough visual memory to memorize how the words look. That is what the schools are asking the students to do before they have a strong foundation in our language’s sound symbol relationship (phonics). At Reading for Kids we do not do sight words until a student is reading close to a 2nd grade level. At that point, we only do them in phrases for fluency purposes.

These are pairs of tricky word pairs in our language that we use at Reading for Kids. We have thousands of these. This is why trying to memorize sight words is so difficult.

who
how

could
cloud

on
no

thing
think

every
very

brought
bought

own
won

Another reason schools continue to do this sight word approach is because teachers do not have the time to sit down with struggling readers and work with them on sight words. It is painful and defeating. There is nothing to give a struggling reader a hint or a brain connection.

We let the phonics take care of the sight words. There are only about 25 sight words that don’t follow the phonics rule. We address those if we need to when the student is able to read grade level material.

Reading research using MRI’s has demonstrated that the brain needs to repeatedly sound out the words in order to learn them and read them automatically.

Warmest regards,
Dr. C. Helberg Ed.D.