Teaching My 5Year Old How to Read

Hi S.,
I have been a teacher for 11 years and some of the things I found work well with my own children and students is fluctuate your voice from low to high, quiet to loud, use different voices for the characters. Also, if your daughter knows short words, you can read most of the sentence, but have her read the words she knows. Stop at certain spots and ask her,"What do you think will happen next?" I don't know where your child is in the learning process, but the first they need to learn is the sounds of the letters. After that concentrate on one word group at a time: for example, the words that have the "ub" ending. Then practice putting different letters in front of the "ub" and she can sound them out. You can do with with magnetic letters on a magnetic board, use paper letters, draw them on a foggy mirror in the bathroom, draw them in the sand, use fun markers on paper....use your imagination to make it fun (that is the key). After she understands a word group like, "ub", get a book from the library, or order from www.scholastic.com that has those words in it. You read most of the sentence and she can read those "ub" words. As you teach the endings of the words, also slowly teach "high frequency" words like "the, and, a , etc." You can find lists on line or at a teacher supply store. Rhyming books are good too. Please let me know if you need any more advice. The important thing too, is not to push, or she will turn off to reading. Read short books also. Good luck and let me know what you did and how it goes! :) K.

1 mom found this helpful

I used the hooked on phonics program with my 4 year old. She really wanted to read. At first it was hard but we didn't give up. Now she is in Kindergarten and reads at a first grade level.

A website that my kids love is www.starfall.com. Click on the learn abc's and there is some fun learning to do. When she gets a little more advanced at reading, the site also has some books with higher reading levels available.

Hope this helps. Remember even in the frustrating times, don't give up!

When my kids were young (they are now in their late 30's and 40's) I made little books to teach them to read. I cut out pictures of a RED or BLUE car and then typed under it in big letters "Red Car." Etc. I kept the books and gave it to the kinds when they started having their own. Guess I should have been a teacher but I would not have been able to stand it when they misbehaved--and they weren't mine to discipline! ;0)
Sandy Fatovich

The first steps are: teaching letter recognition (naming all the letters, upper and lower case) and then producing the sounds that go with each letter. Just have fun reading books to your child and talking about the pictures together.

-kindergarten teacher

Try the book "Teaching your child to read in 100 easy lessons" I used it for both my boys when they were 5. It starts by teaching the letter sounds, NOT NAMES. Each lesson has scripted exactly what you should say.

Hi S..
I don't know exactly what will work for your child but when my son was learning to read I simply fed his interests. He loved dinosaurs so I bought every book I could that had anything to do with them. I also took him to dinosaur festivals and made a big deal out of the books that were there to create more interest. I made time before bed to do the reading...after the bath...snuggled him under the covers and held him close to do the reading so he could see the pictures. During these times, the atmosphere was very warm and constantly anticipated. I also bought books with tapes that he could practice to on his own, if he so chose to do, and video games with reading. I made it very fun for him. His favorite presents were accompanied by stimulating books and stories. We also visited the library for reading groups and went to special places to do the reading, such as the park during a picnic after play; and, because of all of this, he was fluently reading by the third week of kindergarten. I still try to make reading and learning interesting. He is now 16 and still walks around with his nose stuck in a book and has plenty to tell me about the stories he reads. I love it! His new favorite material is the work of Poe.

Cute story: He was once grounded from reading because of the inopportune times at which he chose to do so. We hated the fact that he had to be punished for doing something so positive, but school work was more important at the time. In fact, the offense was repeated at several times before, so we found limitation necessary. After he was finished with the punishment, we never had to instill it again, needless to say. lol.
I hope your methods turn out so productive. Take care and enjoy mommyhood! It's fabulous!

Sincerely, Becky

We started our child on Hooked on Phonics Kindergarten Level. We bought it at Sams Club and it came with a CD for the computer that sang songs and was interactive. It kept our daughter's attention who can be challenged in that area too! She is doing great with it. And, we have done the Starfall website too as one of the previous readers suggested. She LOVES that website and it is FREE. Very good suggestion!

I don't know if this helps but it's what I did with my three children who are now 18, 20 and 22. We read all of Dr. Seuss and the Berenstein Bear books...then we'd watch movies that coincided with the books...they loved knowing the books and when they could recognize words they'd say the ones they knew and when they could "read" we'd take turns reading pages. Something they did at school that I loved was they'd have the kids write their own "books" complete with pictures. Even though the words were not spelled correctly they'd get to tell their own story about vacation, favorite foods, family etc...it was a fun way to teach and they really took ownership of it.

I am a mother of a 4 /12 year old who has been asking to learn how to read for almost a year. My mother baught me a program called learn to read pre-k. It is mad by hooked on phonics. We are not very far into it, but she seems to be very interested in learning it. It has three levels. We are on the first one. It starts with teaching capitol letters and then moves on to lower case. We are still on the capitol, but she really enjoys it. It is also helping her with her computer skills, because it includes a cd rom for them to play games on the computer. She does not have much of an attention span, but for this she will concentrate. It is wonderful.

I am also working with my 5 yo with reading. With her older sister, we used the Hooked on Phonics system and it was wonderful!! In fact, she's always (since Kindergarten) ended up reading several grades ahead of her class. She's now in 3rd grade, and reading up to 7th grade level!

There are also some great tv shows that are teaching my 3 yo letter-recognition and reading - Super Why and Between the Lions are his favorite. Use TiVo - so can record them and be able to pause and replay as needed.

Also, let her pick out her own books at the library so you can read to her and she can try to read to you. Flash cards are also helpful ;)

Best,
C.

Good luck!!

15 years ago I bought Hooked on Phonics for my daughter. I have used it to teach all 3 of my kids to read. It's easy and fun. I even loaned it to my friend to help her kids learn to read. Costco is selling it in the book section right now. Also, keep in mind that she may not be a reader. Out of my 3 kids I only have 1 that truly loves to read. I wasn't a reader until my 30's. Now I love it. Good luck!

I have a just turned 5 yr old who is so busy... just so full of energy and won't sit, except he has his favorite block of learning time that I devote just to him. It is weird, but since I have tried to understand his learning style (musical and visual) it has helped. Repetiton of flash cards especially if each flash card he reads he gets some small incentive cheer. It is important that you get some phonogram flash cards that will teach him the sound of letters. Leap frog has a lot of good games that encourage the repetition and make it fun. For me, it is just being fun instead of so focused on controlling the learning moments. There are letters and words everywhere. Grocery shopping I would hand him a package and say" what letter is that?" Just one at a time. I started with setting aside a whole month to learn the alphabet. One letter a day-- that day we just looked for those everywhere. cut them out of magazines. I taped cards all over the house with that letter on it. He would run from card to card and squeel "AAAAA" next day "BBBBB" Make it fun. You have fun and she will as well! I don't sell with this company but the musical side www.britemusic.com Great music cd's for every area of learning! LOve it!

S.,

I have a couple of ideas. First of all, what does she really enjoy? Does she draw pictures of the family or horses or rainbows, etc.

Have her tell you a story about something like this. Write the story as she tells it. Then have her draw pictures for the pages and put it together as a book. You can get inexpensive blank books with plain white pages for her to color on at Lakeshorelearning.com (they also have a store at 47th street and Bell).

Then when you go to read to her, she can follow along with what she told you. Seeing her own work in a real book will get her very excited.

Another idea would be to get some of the follow the bouncing ball videos. Most are sing-a-long. Check out the link below.

http://www.retrojunk.com/tv/videos/2926-disney-sing-along...

Another possibility is to go to a children’s museum or zoo and have her tell you what the signs say. Help her sound things out, and see what the animals are before she reads the sign, but some kids learn better when it is practical knowledge; reading for information rather than for pleasure.

I hope this helps.

F. G

First you start teaching ur kids to read by reading to them, memorizing the letters and then buying the early reader books with the words in the back of the book that they can keep and build their vocab. You start by teaching them. I, he , she ,it etc.....words first. as they build their vocab they will begin to read, dr suess is great because it repeats words and sounds. You should also get advice from her soon to be school , see what they use in kindergarten for their phonics program.
a.r

Try using the BOB books. They are a series of very thin books that come in a box and start off very simple. I used them on my daughter AFTER she started reading by herself at the age of two, and they are wonderful. Does your daughter know her ABC's yet? You may need to start with them sight recognition and sound! If she can identify the letter and make the sound that is makes, that is the first step. BUT I soo love the BOB books. Usually Barnes and Noble or Borders has them. I once saw them in Target. Good luck, don't stress her or you and have fun with it...walking through the zoo and Identifying the plate names to the animals can be fun too!

im a grandma of 5 my youngest is 3 i dont know what kind of books you have read but all my kids love comic books dr streuss sp sorry all the kids books i found a book of every country in it and it has puzzles and all kinds of things i would get a book that has like didnt kinds of pictures and puzzles so she or he can also do besides you doing it all for them try it i know all my grandkids loved them i still get my 3 year old books like that my daughter said she loves them she goes to her room and pretends that she is in school she loves it hope i did something grandma N.

Hi S.,
I have a friend who teaches fourth and fifth grade. She also has two children of her own. She used a leap frog with both of her children and has used them in the classroom they love it. It is interactive and uses games and music so it may keep your daughters attention a little longer. My daughters are only 2 and 10 weeks, so I do not speak from experience! Just an idea.

At Target I have seen in the toy section reading aids. One is for PreK age and the other for Kindergarten. It looks neat and maybe something like that will hold her attention. I dont know the name though. I think it is on the same asile as the leap frog games.

My school district teaches the Spalding method for learning their phonograms, and all of my kids read really well. You may look on the internet to find it, or talk to a teacher or your local school. Some of the other programs don't teach all of the sounds that each letter makes. Their are 70 phonograms in this program, that cover 99% of what our english language sounds like (things have changed since it was produced years ago). When I do it with my kids, I'll give them a treat, penny, nickle for each one that they know. My daughter's kindergarten teacher has a song that includes each sound for the simple alphabet, along with sign language as you sing. It is really neat (but I'd be surprised if she didn't make it up herself). I could ask permission to give it to you via video if you'd want. Let me know.

M. SAHM of 6, and loving it (most of the time!!!!!) ____@____.com

My mother-in-law had a great book she gave me, which was excellent in the way it explained what - how - and why - of reading words. ("Teaching Your Baby to Read" by Dr. Glenn Doman, Random House Publishers.) Both my girls learned to read early, and it has been a tremendous advatage for them as they've gone on to advanced degrees and careers.
I was a single mother. Little one was 1yr old, oldest 8 yrs old. I had a good job, but long hours. Surprisingly, I only spent about 15 minutes, maybe 2 or 3 times a week, and they both absorbed the words easily and eagerly. The secret is to put the big red LOWER CASE letter words AWAY the INSTANT they show signs of boredom or stress. It's a treat, and NEVER imposed.
This alone may have been the secret to why it worked so well.
I'll never forget holding up the new word "toothbrush" and getting ready to run my finger under it and say it, when my little girl beat me to it. She'd taken the sounds from "foot" and whatever else and assimilated the phonetics. You don't "teach" the phonetics. You let them become an internal "Ahah!!" which is waaaay more fun for your child. Read the book. It's worth finding the time to do this right. As the man said, all the multi-million dollar methods to teach reading have failed miserably. Here's one you do with $1.50 and it WORKS EVERY TIME.
Make it fun, no matter how important it is. Make it fun, because it IS so important. Make a LITTLE deal out of it, and you'll be scrambling to keep up with new books for your voracious reader.
Books let your Brain get out and Run...
Good Luck, and have a great time, Gramma L.

Hi S.,
I teach workshops on teaching kids to read and write. Mine are now grown but they were all reading before they were three, grandchildren too. What I did was to make reading a constant thing, but made it play. So they never thought they were learning. Of course we read lots of books. We talked about letters and sounds in the course of general conversation. We read signs along the road or when we were shopping, or anywhere. First we just looked for letters, then we advanced to reading words. We read cereal boxes, milk cartons, Sunday comics and more. When they would play "let's pretend" we incorporated play menus (some places have take-out menus you can have), treasure maps with words, seek and find games using written clues and other things that make reading part of playing. My daughter put index card labels on everything in her house. For example, there was a "clock" label on the clock. Recently she put up a new set of labels in Italian, after she visited Italy and set a goal to take her daughters there sometime. Her 8 year old has read more than 400 books since September. They love to read. We did lots of crafts and playing that involved letters (like cutting a bat out of black construction paper and painting a white "B b" on it or gluing beans to a paper plate in the shape of the letter). We read Richard Scarry picture books with identifying words beneath the pictures and so much more. We played seek and find the letters games on ad pages in magazines. Reading was constant, but the kids didn't realize it. We let the kids see US read too.
There are more ideas on my website.
K. Winters, "mother of family ideas"
http://www.winmarkcom.com

Keep reading to her. keep it simple, make it fun. She'll learn to love to read.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that children are ready to read at very different ages. Developmentally speaking, as long as children should be reading by the age of nine or ten, their proficiency levels will not suffer in the end. In fact, children who are pushed into reading too early frequently have less interest and proficiency in later years. My daughters would have me read hours on end, if my throat didn't give out, so I don't have as much experience with that, but my guess is not to push it--the most important thing is that they love reading and that they see you do it for pleasure. If they don't feel like it's a chore, their interest will grow.

One way to get her interested in reading is by pointing out to her how much she can already "read". Then it might not seem so intimidating and impossible to her. My 4/5 pre-k class worked a lot with environmental print. Most kids can look at the sign for, say, "Wendy's" and know it says Wendy's but we usually don't think about this as reading. Congradulating her on reading these kinds of things in her environment will make her interested in what other things around her say. You can practice when looking at grocery adds, organizing the pantry, driving down the road, and shopping at the store. Hope this helps you set a foundation and spark an interest before you dive into the more technical, and sometimes less interesting side of learning to read.

The "BOB" books are awesome. You can get them at any bookstore and maybe the library too. They are progressive so you need to use them in order.

Don't push her too hard. She will quickly learn to dislike reading if it is "forced" beyond what she is ready for. My 13yo didn't read until first grade. Some think that is late but he wasn't ready until then. He is now a straight A student and was just accepted into Brophy.

Don't worry if she isn't reading at five.

T. C.
Spa Girlfriend Parties
www.spaescapescottsdale.com

it sounds like you are asking two seperate questions. first, if you would like her to listen to you read, i suggest about 15 minutes of reading/looking at pictures before nap or bedtime where you can cuddle up and use it to have intimate time together.
second, if you are looking to "teach" her how to read you should go through the phoentic alphabet (instead of singing abc's, singing ah, buh, cah, etc.) then have an alphabet strip with pictures of the letter...again singing phoentically as you point...as she gets acquainted with the sounds of the letters instead of names, you can make some easy words like flash cards like cat, dog, cup, and sound them out together. the more she practices and likes doing it, the easier it will get.

Some of early reading is just an innate talent, but here are some strategies that seemed to help my daughter. Find 'easy reader' books, like the ones the pictures for certain words. Use her favorite characters to keep her attention. Have her find a certain word, "where does it say TOY?" See if she will guess what the book says based on the pictures. Focus on the starting sounds: d-d-d- dog. Re-read the same book over and over so she can start associating the words she knows with the words she sees. Point to the words as you read them. Take turns if she can--I read this page, you read that page. Read aloud and replace super silly words with the real ones. That might keep her on her toes and encourage her to look for the real word and correct you! "She was tired, so she went to SPAGHETTI," "NO! That says BED!"

I would check with your local school district before starting to teach your child to read. There are several different ways to teach your child to read and when your daughter gets to school, the school's way may be different and she may become confused. Also keep in mind that she is young and may not be ready to read. I have a friend who taught her oldest daughter to read young and the child (and mother) were very proud of her abilities. Now the child is in 4th grade and is a middle of the road reader. In the long run, getting an early start didn't help her at all. I agree with other moms here, just keep reading to her--and make it fun, and she will always love to read.

Does she know the sounds of the letters instead of the name of the letter? The sounds are much more helpful in reading. Read to her alot, and when you do read to her, point to the words so she can begin to associate the words to the objects and the sounds they make. Once she knows what the sounds of the letters are, begin to put two letters together to make simple words, words where both letters are heard, such as "it", "in", and "at". Then begin to add a third letter to them to make a three letter word, such as "pit", "pin" and "cat". If she is not interested, dont push her. Always continue to read to her, and let her see you reading.