Teaching & Cultivating a Love of Reading 2

The start of a new school year is just around the corner and maybe you're getting ready to start phonics with your child. Teaching your children to read might feel like an overwhelming task, but it really isn't! You can totally do it. This is what I've learned with my own children and what I feel is so important during that whole process:

1. Patience, patience, patience. This virtue is not overrated, especially when it comes to teaching reading. Showing any kind of frustration because something isn't clicking or they keep miss-pronouncing something will only cause tension and stress in your child. They're going to get it, we only need to keep plugging along with patience and a cheerful attitude as their teacher.

2. Keep lessons short and sweet. If they're begging you for more, by all means keep going. But often times a short a lesson is just the ticket for most kids. Always end on a happy note. This makes tip no. 1 a lot more doable for you too. If lessons end in tears or even get close it's gone too far.

3. Don't give into any pressure or ideas that your child needs to be reading at a young age. They don't. Every child has their own personal timeframe and as long as you keep chipping away at helping them build skill, while at the same time making books and reading fun without strain, it will happen. I've taught all 5 of my children to read, one was reading pretty good at 7 years and another didn't become fluent until around 10 or 11 years old! Not one of them was even close to reading at 5 or 6. But the foundation was being laid.

Bob Books were my very favorite beginning readers that I used with all my kids. You can usually find them in Costco this time of year too at a great price. I used the whole series and loved them!

Explode the code are phonics workbooks that came in handy to help reinforce what I was teaching them. Again, I would keep lessons short. Maybe one day you do phonics practice and the next a page in the workbook that supports what you just worked on. 

With my older kids I jumped around a lot with what I used that actually helped me to teach phonics. But with Noah I started and ended with The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. I never read the scripted teacher parts, but instead just used them as a guide to help me explain things, if needed. I used the book how I felt most comfortable and that's what you should do with any curriculum you purchase. You are the master, never the slave to curriculum. (that's bonus tip no. 4! :)