Whether you want to teach your child to read yourself, or give him a better start before sending him off to school, it’s never too early to give him a head start. And you don’t need to spend a lot of money to do it – the key to your child’s reading success is your own involvement.
Phonemic Awareness
A child can learn to communicate because our language is made up of words. Just as simply, he can learn to read because words are made up of sounds. His success will depend on his recognition of each of these individual sounds. Since the early 1900's, the Montessori approach to reading has been to give children plenty of practice isolating the sounds that make up our language – before introducing the letter symbols. Now, after years of conflict between traditional phonetic and whole-language teaching methods, many educators are "discovering" the importance of phonemic awareness. The bottom line for parents is this: To ensure your child’s reading success help him develop an awareness of the sounds of our language.
The Sound Game
Here’s a game that you can play in small snatches of time – driving in the car, waiting in the doctor’s office, folding laundry. No materials necessary – just your knowledge of phonetic sounds (see sidebar).
- Mom: Let's think of some words that have mmm in them, like milk....mommy....moon.
- Little Sweetie: Daddy?
- Mom: I don't hear an mmm in daddy. Mmm...marshmallow...merry-go-round.
- LS: Muffin?
It may take a few sessions for your child to develop an "ear." Eventually he will produce a correct response. Give him a great big hug – and play some more!
Letters Last
Knowing alphabetical order and letter names are really not much help in reading. Instead, once your child knows a few sounds, buy some lower case (not capitals) refrigerator magnet letters and begin introducing the symbols this way:
Mom: Let’s think of some words with s (phonetic sound) -- Like sing, silly, snake ... Do you want to see what s looks like?
Now it’s easy to start forming three letter phonetic words like cat, dog, hum. And your child is on the road to reading!
Parenting like a pro
| Phonetic Sounds | |
| a: as in apple | o: as in ostrich |
| b: as in bed | p: as in peanut |
| c: as in cat | q: as in teach last, as qu (kw) |
| e: as in elephant | r: as in rabbit |
| f: as in fan | s: as in sing |
| g: as in gate | t: as in top |
| h: as in hat | u: as in up |
| I: as in igloo | v: as in victor |
| j: as in jar | w - wedding |
| k: as in king (same as c) | x: as in sounds like ks, as in box |
| l: as in lemon | y: as in yellow |
| m: as in mommy | z: as in zebra |
| n: as in nest | |
Practice on your own first, isolating each letter. Clip the sounds: for instance p sounds like a puff of air, not like puh.