How to Teach a 7 Year Old to Read?

If you read to her every day she will learn to read. When kids learn is largely developmental and nothing else you do will change when it 'clicks' for them. Please do NOT force her to memorize words. That she learns to love reading is so so so much more important than when she starts.

ETA: My son learned to read in a Montessori program and we NEVER did sight words at all. He is an avid reader who cannot go 10 minutes without picking up a book.

I'm a reading specialist. My first suggestion is to talk to her teacher and ask what exactly she is struggling with. Really the only words she needs to memorize are the sight words--words that can't be decoded (sounded out) and the words that are used most frequently in written text.

Beyond that she needs the skills to take words apart and read the chunks. For example the word can is c-an. Just changing the first sound you can read the words ban, Dan, fan, Jan, man, Nan, Stan, than, span. Just by adding endings, you can read a whole bunch of other words--cans, canning, candle. You need to know which phonics skills she needs help with.

But please, please, please DO NOT buy Teach Your Child to Read products, workbooks and flash cards to practice those skills. Play games. If you Google 1st grade phonics games you will find lots of fun ideas that can be made for little to no cost at home. Many of them have been made by home school moms. Don't spend hours making her play them. 10-15 minutes at the most every day. If it isn't fun for her, it will be counter productive.

Instead of spending lots of time memorizing words or playing games, spend time with books! Read to her. Read with her. Ask her teacher or a librarian at the public library for book recommendations for easy reader books. Start with the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems. A lot of the Step into Reading books will probably be at her reading level. Henry and Mudge books are great! Dr. Seuss books are great for practicing chunking words. Green Eggs and Ham is a perfect book for that! Others have mentioned you reading a page or line and your daughter reading the next. That's a great thing to do. If that's too hard, take turns reading each word. Audio books that she can listen to and follow along are great. The Epic! app has some great audio books. The Tumblebooks web site is also great. Check with your local library or school librarian to see if they have other ideas.

Talk about the books you read. Don't quiz her on the books. Have book discussions with her. What was your favorite part? Why do you think the character did that? Would you want to be friends with that character? How would you feel if that happened to you? How would you change this story? Share your own answers to your questions. Encourage her to ask you questions about the books you read together.

There is so much research that shows that the best readers are the kids who spend the most time reading or being read to. I used to have a poster in my classroom that said: 10 Ways to be a Better Reader
1) Read
2) Read
3) Read
You get the idea. Immersion in books is the best way to learn how to read. Just like swimming. You can't learn to swim if you aren't in the water. You can't learn to read if you aren't I books!

oh geez, you're going to make her HATE reading.

if she's only 'slightly' behind you have nothing to worry about anyway. kids don't all read at exactly the same level. some teachers even forget this. the guidelines are just that, averages, benchmarks. they're not crises waiting to happen.

all i would do would be to read to her, books that she loves, early and often. the last thing i would ever expect a child to do is 'memorize words.' the process of reading is so much fun and excitement and adventure precisely because it's NOT about memorizing the words- it's using the wonderful process of sounding out and figuring out the surprising and delicious formulae for what makes words work. it's an ongoing process, and one that will come to a screeching halt if you damage it permanently by turning it into drudgery.

just read to her. if you're snuggled on the couch, or in bed, you can run one finger under the lines as you go so she will naturally follow along, and without any effort at all her brain will incrementally start associating the words you speak with the written words.

your question makes it sound as if you're starting from scratch with a non-reader (and if that were the case i'd still be flapping and squawking at you not to make her 'memorize words). since you have a reader, one who is simply 'behind' (whatever that means) then focus on making reading magic, not on how to 'teach' her to 'memorize.'
khairete
S.

I used to play Hangman with simple three and four letter words. I also agree with reading to her.

I read to my daughter every night before bed. Your 7 year old might love it if you pick a really interesting chapter book and read a few chapters each night. Something like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or The BFG (Big Friendly Giant). I just finished the BFG with my 6 year old and she was delighted! My 11 year old son loves that book too. Google up classic books for that age as well as more popular books. Maybe you already do this (read every night). I do it for about 30m every night and it really seems to help my kids learn to read. Sometimes when I am reading a simpler book I follow my finger along the words as I read them. I will point to a word and have my daughter read it. Simple books with repetition are great for this. Some kids learn to read later than others, but I believe they pretty much all catch up at some point. So don't worry too much. At age 7 my son actually loved it when we read Harry Potter (although some kids might not like it).

Read to her every day. Find a book she thinks is interesting/fun. Have her sit next to you on the couch so she can see over your shoulder while you read. Or, you read a page, then she reads a page. Get an easy chapter book, and read a chapter a night. Maybe the Ramona books would be fun for her age? Or Horrible Harry?

My kids had a list of sight words; just like it sounds it was words they had to know by sigh without having to sound them out. I put each word on a small paper and stuck them all to a sliding glass door that was by the dining room table. Every night before dinner we'd go through the words. If they got a word right 3 times we'd move it to the other slider. Pretty soon the words they knew filled up the other slider and the sight words were finished.

Make it fun. Make it a game. If she's having trouble go back to beginning reader books from the library to give her success and build her confidence. Share the reading of stories so you do a line and she does a line. If she gets frustrated then back off a little or remind her that everyone has trouble learning something but it all works out in the end.

One sure way to get a kid to hate reading is to set them down with a list of words and force her to memorize them.
It's boring, frustrating and the kid ends up in tears more often than not.

You need to read to/with her every day.
Reading is not just for bedtime!
For years I never went anywhere without a book and anytime we had to wait more than 10 minutes for anything - we'd read!
There was more than one occasion when I'd be quietly reading to my son in a doctors waiting room and other kids would come sit near us so they could hear the story.
It's ok if you memorize favorite books (we knew most Dr Seuss books by heart).
The point is you're snuggling up and having fun and enjoying a story together.
Then you can start playing games with it.
You read odd pages out loud and she can read even pages out loud to you.
At one point I had a sore throat and got laryngitis and couldn't read - so our son volunteered to read to ME for bedtime story!
It was so sweet!
If it's something that you enjoy and you show your daughter that reading is important to you - then there is a good chance that reading will be important to her too.
As for what books to read? ANYTHING that she's interested in!
When our son was little we read about fire trucks, dinosaurs and sharks.
He'd get so interested in the topic, he didn't mind if the reading was a little difficult.
By the 2nd half of 2nd grade his reading took off and there's been no holding him back since then!
He's in 11th grade now and is still an avid recreational reader.

So, your focus should not be to get her to memorize words. I would talk to her teacher about what area she is actually behind on, is it comprehension, decoding, sight words, ecetera. Hopefully, her teacher can give you specifics and some good resources.

Ask her teacher. There are so many ways to practice reading, and most kids don't like just memorizing words, that's boring. Her teacher can tell you all about games you can play and other activities to make strengthening her skills fun and effective.
Also don't forget to keep reading TO her as well, every night. Chapter books are so great at this age and you can talk about the story as you go along, ask her questions, etc. That will help her with her comprehension skills.
And of course go to the library at least a few times a month and let her check out lots of books, and talk to the librarian there as well, that's what they do, they help kids find the kinds of books they will actually enjoy, and that aren't too easy or too hard.

You should be focusing on learning the letter sounds not memorizing words.

Get some basic reading books and read with her, help her to sound out the letters in the words. Before you know it she will do it one her own.

Does the school have a reading specialist? I would talk with her teacher first, then ask to have the reading specialist evaluate her (if that hasn't already been done; maybe it has). She might benefit from some one on one work with the specialist, or the specialist might have small groups that meet during the school week where she works with a few kids at a time. You need to be fully engaged with the teacher and any reading resource person the school has, and you all need to be a team. Please, as someone below noted, do not try the store-bought "teach your child to read" packages. Ask the experts at school. And read to her and with her a LOT. Make it the priority--dinner dishes can wait, laundry can wait, but always be sure to read with her too. If the teacher and specialist give you exercises to do (and any exercises surely will not involve memorizing words), do them, and let the teacher know how it's going -- check in with him or her frequently.

Our kids benefitted from listening to the book on tape/cd and also reading along themselves. I made the tapes myself from the books I wanted them to work on (I'm dating myself - tapes) and they would listen with headphones and follow along in the book. I read slow and I noticed before long they were "reading head" of my voice on the tape because they knew the words.

I don't know that this is a "recommended" method, but it worked for my kiddos - especially my last 3 - they spoke/read no English when we adopted them at ages 4, 5, and 7.

Good luck!

My sister has lazy eye,she had trouble reading. Did you get an eye doctor to evaluate her? Mabye she needs glasses.

Some kids aren't ready to read until they're clear up in 2nd grade. Our pressure on them to be reading in kindergarten and even 1st grade is relatively new. Kids are being held back just because of this too. It's not fair. Some kids brains just don't make those connections as quickly as others and that doesn't make them dumb or not developing correctly.

I'd say keep working on it but stop any pressure or talking to them about how they have to do this. They don't. They need to be reading, yes they do, but they don't "have" to do it right now.

There will be a light bulb moment when their brain makes all those wiring connections. It may not even come this year and it might come tomorrow.

Pressure might make them hate readying because it makes them feel bad about themselves.

When I'm doing math I hear my parents yelling at me and have flashback memories to them hitting me with a belt or switch or their fists trying to "make" me learn math. To this day I hate math and my math skills just stopped one day. I can try and try and try to do higher math but I get suicidal and start being jumpy when I try to do math homework or sit down to take a math test.

All because my parents tried to pressure me into learning when they thought it was time for me to get it and they tried to force me into that. So I am adamantly against pressuring kids to learn something on a teacher's timetable. The learning will come and will come sooner if it's fun and enjoyable and they are stress free while learning the skill. Try to make it more of a game and help him learn that way. Otherwise back off and let him take the lead in the learning.