Many today say that Kindergarten is the new first grade and children are expected to be reading by the end of the year. This can cause a lot of frustration for kids who are not yet cognitively ready to read. When you homeschool you are able to teach your child to read at their pace and help them keep the love for reading they started with. Of course we all want our children to be early readers so they can enjoy reading books on their own, but if you force it on them it's going to backfire on you. Reading should not be a negative experience for your child. I've heard you can give your child until the third grade to be reading fluently before you start worrying a bunch.
In this post, I'm going to talk about things you can do to help your child be a successful reader, as well as some resources and lessons to use to help teach your child to read, for kindergarten or any of the early elementary years. Keep it fun and go at your child's pace. If anything is unclear (because sometimes the things I type apparently only make sense in my head) please comment or email me for clarification.
Whenever you do work at home with your child, remember you are not a taskmaster who's job it is to put your child through drills and make them do tasks. Your job is to be excited about learning, and share that excitement with your little one. Instead of taking the attitude of "Go do that now!" you say "Come with me and let's learn together." Lead by example and love. Having that feeling in your homeschool will make all the difference in how your child approaches learning and responds to you as their teacher.
Here are some things you can do in your house now to help set your kids up to be successful readers:
Fill Your House With Books
Just as it is hard to learn to waterski in a desert, it's hard to learn to read in a place with no books. Start your book collection as soon as you can. I started collecting picture books when I was in college (but I was going to be an elementary teacher, so that's kind of why I started.) New books are expensive, so I suggest going to lots of yard sales. I have found lots of great books while yard sailing, and sometimes you get lucky and find a retired teacher who is selling her collection. Also make it a habit to buy (or ask grandparents to buy) at least one book as a present for each birthday/christmas/easter/arbor day etc . . . Also, take lots of trips to the library. The more books, the better.
Be An Example
If you want your children to be readers, let them see YOU read! When they see you engrossed in a book, they are going to want to know what the fuss is about and want to read too. I know, for me, it's hard to justify spending time in a chair reading when I have so many other things I need to be doing, but I also know it is so important to show my children that reading is fun and something I want to be doing.
Read Out Loud
I think most of us are pretty good about reading books before bedtime or nap time, but you can read any time of the day. I have found meal times to be good read aloud time. When I remember, I read a chapter of a short book or some poems from a collection at lunch. It keeps my boys from fighting and throwing food at each other too, so that's a bonus.
Set Aside Quiet Reading Time
Even if your child isn't reading the words, they can still read books by flipping through the pages and looking at pictures. Set aside 10 min or more a day to just sit and look through books. Make sure you join in the silent reading time.
Make Books Together
Kids love to make up stories while they are playing, and it's a lot of fun to write them down.
Make them into a book and you will have an excited child. They will love showing off their book and "reading" it to everyone (even if they are not really saying the words. It's okay for them to just make up the story to go with the pictures you've put in.) We like to print out our books. Sometimes the kids would illustrate them by hand, and sometimes we would take pictures with our camera to go along with the story. Doing this will help build enthusiasm for books.
And now for some things to more actively help kids learn to read:
Teach Phonics First
Kids need to be aware that letters make sounds and that sounds put together make words. All 4 of my kids have learned their letter sounds by watching the LeapFrog DVD "The Letter Factory". We've also made sticker charts (I love sticker charts) with the letters on them. When my child could name the letter and it's sound, we'd put a sticker on it.
Other phonics activities you could do:
Make your own alphabet book using stickers and drawing pictures with one letter on a page. Laminate them and put them in a binder. We did this several years ago when Christopher was learning his letters and the older kids helped draw pictures and we made it was a fun group project. We still like looking through it.
Choose a letter of the day. Walk around your house pointing out everything you can find that starts with the letter sound.
Write letters in shaving cream on the table, or in a sand/salt/rice box. The adult writes the letter first, the child traces over it with their finger, and says the letter sound while they do. You can erase and have them try to write it on their own too.
Play games such as "
ABC Market". There are a lot of alphabet games out there in the internet world.
Always point out the sounds words start with. When serving lunch or snack say things like "You have a sandwich. What sound does sandwich start with? (say the word slowly) What's that first sound? What letter makes that sound? etc . . ."
Put the Letters Together
Once my kids know their letters and sounds I start to teach them to put them together to make words, if they are ready. My kids have loved watching the LeapFrog "Talking Words Factory" for this. Also, I love the PBS show "Between the Lions", although it's hard to find these days. "Word World" is another favorite reading show.
I have also used, to varying degrees, "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". I started this with Maren when she was pretty young because I thought she was smart enough for it. She knew all her letters and sounds and I thought she should be reading, because wasn't it a simple step to go from letter sounds to words? Turns out the answer is no. She was not ready. After about 15 very painful lessons for both of us, we quit. She dreaded our reading lessons and they often ended in tears. I was trying to force her to read (her cousin was reading after all) and it was a learning experience for me. You can't push a child to read, even if you know they are smart enough and know their sounds and you think it should work. After about a YEAR, we came back to it and this time she was ready. I still skipped over parts of the lesson if it was dragging or I could tell it wasn't enjoyable for her, and we never did the writing part at the end. Remember whenever you start one of these programs that it's okay to adapt it to your needs. You don't have to do everything they tell you to. After we got through about the 50th lesson, things clicked and Maren was off reading and never stopped, so we didn't finish the book. With my 3rd child, however, we went through every single one of those 100 lessons and things still weren't quite clicking. It was a struggle, but not a painful one (he was still enjoying trying to read). Things didn't click for him until much later, but once they did it was amazing to watch him take off. I tell you this to show that kids really do move at their own pace, even when they have the same instruction and the same learning environment. A lot depends on when the child is ready. Christopher was just ready about 2 years later than Maren was, and that's okay.
There are lots of ways you can spell simple CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words with your kids. We have done
pretzel words and cookie words. We've used magnetic letters and playdoh. Just find ways to practice sounding out and spelling simple words.
Teach Sight Words
After my kids could sound out simple CVC words, I introduced sight words to them. I went online and googled "Dolch List" and found a website called
The Schoolbell.com where they have the words split into 11 lists. I printed out the mini cards, cut and laminated them, and made a couple of sticker charts - one with the list words on it and one that had "List 1, List 2, etc . . ". We practiced the lists one at a time. When they passed off list one, they put a sticker on the chart and got a small prize. When they passed off all 11 lists, they got their own library bag and library card.
The first time we went through a list, I would say the word, spell it and say it again. Then the child would do the same. After we went through all of the list, we went back and the child would read as many as they could. We put stickers on the sticker chart of all the words they could read.
We played many games with the sight words to try and make it fun. One game we called
"Sight Word Fortress." We've also done "
Don't Eat Pete" with sight words, "
Math Pop!" with sight words instead of numbers, and others that I can't remember right now.
Read Easy-to-Read Books Together
Once my kids were getting the hang of sounding out words and knew enough sight words, we found easy to read books at the library or store or yard sales and read them together. First, we'd look through the book at the pictures and guess as to what the book was about. We call this "pre-reading" the book. Then we'd go through the book together and I would help with unfamiliar words. When we got through a book, we would put up a sticker on our chart (if we were doing a sticker chart) or put up whatever kind of incentive we were doing at the time. I like to put up scenes on the wall made of paper and have the kids add things to them to show achievement. I've done fish in an aquarium, gold coins in a treasure chest, soccer balls in a soccer goal, popcorn in a box, and the like. The kids would write the name of the book on the fish, or coin, and add it to the scene. It's a nice way to motivate the children.
Again, I want to say that you should not be disappointed if your child is not reading and doing all of these things by the end of Kindergarten. Some kids will not be ready to read that soon. These types of activities are things to focus on for years of homeschooling at home. Just take it a step at a time and don't push it if it's causing distress. Be patient, have fun, and go at your child's pace.
