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How Do You Teach Kids To Read At Home?
Learning to read is never actually that straightforward, it all depends on the child and how they learn. Which you won’t actually know until you start supporting them in their reading journey! Teaching kids to read also does not need to look like school, at all. So many people see young children sitting down at a desk and being told to follow the same easy lessons. As if one size fits all. When really it does‘t.
So how do you teach kids to read at home? Well in the first instance you need to work out what they already know by pointing out letters wherever you go. Help the children learn the letters of their name and then the letters of the alphabet. From here you can ask them to read simple words and discuss how different letters create sounds. But it’s at this point that you will probably need to observe your child to find out how their brain works when it comes to reading. Read on below for more ideas!
How Do You Know When Kids Are Ready To Read?
Again, this is not an easy one to answer, it does depend on the child. However, if your child is pointing out letters or even words on signs, cereal boxes etc. then they are probably ready to begin learning to read. Although I still wouldn’t push it too far if they are quite young (under 5). It can be better to just support what they are already choosing to do and let them lead the way.
Do You Need Workbooks To Teach Reading?
No! Workbooks are used in schools to standardise teaching and make it easy for the teacher. At home you can teach in millions of other ways. Workbooks are not needed to learn and in fact they put off many children. Of course, if your child enjoys workbooks then feel free to buy them. But understand that there are other ways too.
Read More About Our Home Educating Family
- Our Home Education Philosophy
- Best Books For Home Educators and Home Schoolers
- How Do You Teach Kids Without Formal Lessons
- The Cost of Homeschooling in the UK
- Educational Activities For Kids
- A Letter To The New Home Educators
- How To Teach Your Child To Read At Home
Ten Tips To Teach Your Child To Read At Home
We have used all of these methods of teaching our kids to read. As we home educate the kids have never been to school and so haven’t learnt via school methods. Despite both having the same parents and resources they actually leant to read in completely different ways. I was often worried about my youngest never learning to read. Until I realised that he just learns in a different way to his older brother. For this reason I would say it’s extremely important to really observe your child around words and how they perceive them. This will help you support the child on their reading journey in the best way possible.
Reading To Your Child
This is the single most important thing you can do to help your child not only learn to read, but to LOVE reading. Start making it part of your routine when they are babies and carry on throughout their lives. Until they tell you to stop! Even though my 12 year old reads lots of books himself, he is still more than happy to sit curled up beside me and his brother whilst I read a story to them both.
Younger Children
For babies I highly recommend things that are fun for you to read. So think of your favourites as a child or choose some of the rhyming stories. Julia Donaldson has a great selection of rhyming stories that are lovely for parents to read. My favourites to read at this age were Snail and The Whale and the Gruffalo. Try adding in the different voices too! For babies and preschool buy the board book versions, so they can look at them without ripping pages out. And don’t get too precious about the books getting chewed or worn, the whole point is for them to be enjoyed. Even if it begins as a tasty chew toy for your teething baby!
As they get older and are less likely to rip pages, switch to larger paper back picture books. There are so many fab stories to choose from. So think about what your child most loves and use that for picking books. If your child is happy enough to choose books themselves then I’d get them involved with that too. It’s great to see them toddle over to shelves of books and then plonk themselves down to look at the pictures of the one they chose.
Older Children
Older children have some awesome chapter books to choose from. Mine have gone through phases where they only read from one series. For a while the youngest only wanted me to read the Rainbow Magic fairy series (there are 1000’s!). Whereas my eldest wanted me to read all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. As they have become older we read longer chapter books. Including all of Cressida Cowell’s books, Alex Bell’s Explorers series and the PG Bell’s Train To Impossible Places series.
So no matter what age or stage your kids are in reading I definitely recommend reading TO them. This helps support their love for exciting stories, connection and bonding with their caregiver and seeing reading as a fun thing and not just for learnings sake.
Visit The Library
I mentioned above about reading books to your children every day, for as long as they want you to. However, you don’t need to buy books, use the local library!
Your local library often has storytime or in our case, Scottish Book Bug, a preschool session where they do some fun games and songs, plus read a children’s story. It’s a great way of making the library a fun and enjoyable place for young children and babies. They also have the low book cases and boxes filled with children’s books. Allowing little ones to pull out a book and sit on one of the comfy kids seats or rugs to read. I love how nice libraries are nowadays for kids and they certainly feel like a fun and inclusive environment for families. Keep an eye out for any events too. Sometimes they have authors come in to tell the kids about the story they wrote or illustrations they created. Another fun way to eat kids interested in writing as well as reading.
Older kids can learn how to find books they like or searching for particular authors by the way the books are alphabetised. Or just knowing their favourite books are always on a certain shelf. Most libraries allow children to take out around 10 books at a time, although I’m not sure our library has ever limited us to that number! You can also check out the non-fiction section if there are particular topics your child is interested in. Some children prefer the non-fiction books to story books, so this is important to check too!
Use Reading Apps
Reading apps are great at encouraging early reading skills. You can lots of different apps for different stages, however I do recommend staying away from apps from a different country. For example American sounds are different to sounds from those in the UK, and could get a bit confusing to kids! I’d also like to point out here that sounds in the UK itself can be completely different, so don’t rely on apps etc. being ‘correct’ wherever you are!
We chose to use the Reading Eggs app, a phonics program, which worked really well for my eldest. He enjoyed all the games and the fun way of learning the sounds and words, so it worked perfectly for him. Reading Eggs reading program has phonics instruction and a lot of repetition. This works for a lot of kids to help learning to read and starts with the very basics along a step-by-step program. Our younger son has worked through Reading Eggs too, but he didn’t learn to read using it and needed other support. This is because his style of learning to read is more about the ‘whole word’ rather than always piecing things together with sounds.
Other reading apps recommended by others include Doodle Learning and Night Zookeeper. We haven’t tried these apps so I can‘t recommend them personally, although I know other home educators who have enjoyed them.
Letter Sounds
The letter sounds are the sounds letters make on their own or together with other letters. This is often used at the beginning of any phonics-based program. It involves much repetition and although are usually included in a school reading lesson, they can be learnt in fun ways too. It’s possible to just point out the letter sounds when reading books with the kids, however it’s more interesting to point them out everywhere you go.
My kids are also interested in letter sounds in words that can be said in two (or more!) different ways. The English language is definitely not the easiest to make sense of. So making sure the kids understand that letter sounds such as ‘ea’ can be said in a variety of ways depending on what the word actually is (think bear, head, ear, tear). This helps kids understand that it’s not that they have remembered something wrong themselves, but that the language is complicated and can take a long time to become fluent.
Letter Names
The letter names are otherwise known (in my day!) as capital letters. It’s what we call the letters when we spell things out or talk about letters. But not how they actually sound. Learning the alphabet is best done in both ways, the letter sounds so kids know how letters sound when trying to read. Then the alphabet in by letter name so they can understand what each letter is called. However, they are not as important for learning to read as people seem to think!
Sight Words
Some words can’t be spelt out, such as the word ‘one’, it doesn’t sound anything like the letters that make it up! So these are sight words and best learnt as a whole word. You can find lists of sight words online. But if you realised it’s a word that a child wouldn’t be able to work out with some phonemic awareness, then use the new word as a learning point. You can stick up the words around the house or play games like shoot the sight word with a water pistol and chalk words written on the ground. Or whatever way you can help. Some children just need to be reminded what the word is when they come across it in easy readers.
Early Readers
I’m sure you will have found plenty of easy readers online. The earliest books are always incredibly boring and I would just advise to skip them, unless your child is particularly keen. Wait until they are understanding more sight words and putting together letter sounds. Then start on the later books. Both my eldest and youngest started the early readers on level 6 of the Oxford Reading Tree. Only because they actually get more exciting! The Magic Key books were a big hit with both my children, with my eldest reading these slowly at 7 years old and the youngest reading them quickly at 9 year old. The later age for my youngest is due to differences in style of learning to read and also not being quite ready previously. Not all children are ready to read at 5!
The library will also have plenty of early readers of all types, but it’s not always easy to find ones that have interesting stories for older kids. Instead try using things such as comics, my two love the Phoenix magazine, or book series such as Investigators or Princess in Black. They have less words per page and so are not so overwhelming to beginner readers.
Use Context Clues
If your child is struggling with certain words you can suggest that they check the surrounding words to find the context. This can help children to understand what the word is without needing to ask for help. Using context clues can really help your child become a good reader.
Understand How Your Child Learns To Read
This is one of the most important things. As I mentioned before each child learns to read differently, they don’t all learn in the same way. Some children learn by phonics, others by reading the whole words and yet others may prefer to use audio books alongside paperback books, or reading the subtitles on a television show. You would be surprised in the number of ways that young readers can learn.
So if your child is struggling with the current method of learning to read, then try a different way! It seems simple, but so many people assume that there is only the one way to learn to read. Once you know how your child is learning then simply continue to support with more of whatever it is that helps your child learn. This could be using phonics apps, pointing out words in the books whilst reading or lot of post it notes around your house! Whatever works to get that love of reading.
Point Out Words Everywhere
When you look around outside the home you will begin to notice words everywhere. Pointing out short words such as ‘slow’ or ‘stop’ on the road and signs can really help children to use new found literacy skills when walking about their everyday lives. It’s a great way to support your child’s confidence and become better readers.
How I Taught My 2 Home Educated Kids To Read
As mentioned early in this article I taught both my children to read at home, they never attended school. When I say that I taught them to read, I wasn’t doing any ‘teaching’ at all! At least not in what people think of teaching. I simply supported my children in what they needed and worked out the next easy steps along their journey. As a home educating mum I facilitate their learning rather than actually teach them. So you could say that the kids learnt to read themselves with a little parental support.
Fluent Reader At 8 Years Old
My eldest son found that the most enjoyable way to learn to read was using the Reading Eggs app. He was doing really well with it, but still didn’t have the confidence to pick up a book and read it. So to help support him I played word games and tried some flash card games to show him he COULD actually read anything he chose to. I also introduced him to the Magic Key reading books from Oxford Reading Tree. However he only read a few of them with me before he realised he didn’t need to read them aloud to me, he could just read them himself.
One day, when he was 8.5 years old he came to me and said that he became lost in the book and it was like he was in another world. My heart melted and I knew that books had got him, he’d learnt how to read and found his love of books. He’s been reading non-stop and incredibly quickly ever since! Although he wasn’t a fluent reader until 8.5, he is now easily reading over and above his age range. Later learners will catch up with those who begin at 5. And some research shows that learning when they are ready (and not when school says you should) means children understand books better and actually enjoy reading more.
Later Reader
My younger son didn’t pick up letters until much later and still kept mixing them up until much later than his brother. He was never as keen at word or letter games and has always been much more active. I thought his brother was active, but the youngest takes it to another level! This lack of ability to concentrate on sit-down tasks means he wasn’t ready to read for a lot longer! He was always more interested in putting on shows, singing, perfecting cartwheels and climbing lamp posts. I tried him with Reading Eggs like his brother, however he just wasn’t as interested and despite doing the tasks, he didn’t seem to be picking up the letters and sounds easily. I let him continuing trying Reading Eggs on and off for a few years and he did at least pick up his letters and some sounds.
Whole Words
However, it wasn’t until he was 9 years old when he started to pick up words more easily. He could sound out some words and others he just couldn’t work out, no matter how many times he saw the same words. This is when I decided a different technique could work better. Using easy readers (Magic key series again!) I asked him to read two pages a day to me, learning the whole words. He happily agreed to this if it meant I read him an extra 2 pages of his chapter books at quiet reading time in the evening! Very quickly he has picked up words, reading aloud to me much quicker with each week.
He seems to prefer repetition and whole word reading. The only way to do this is through actually reading the books to me! He could have done this when he was younger, but as the books were pretty boring it didn’t work. It’s definitely helped not to push him into learning before he was ready and he already had a love of reading from me reading to him daily. So definitely just take it a little bit at a time and work out how YOUR child learns to read, not a prescriptive text book lesson. The whole point of reading is to instil a love of reading and learning.
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