Teaching Children to Read My experience with my own children has me firmly convinced that an emphasis on phonics is very important in teaching children to read well and to enjoy reading. I highly recommend the books "Teach Your Child to Read in 60 Days" by Sidney Ledson, and "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelman. These books helped convince of the importance of phonics. I thought I knew how to teach a child to read -- after all, I'd learned myself as a child -- but I really didn't. After reading the above books, I did. In some ways it's far simpler than it looked; in other ways it's far harder. For example, once a child has learned to read "b" and "r" you can't automatically assume they can read "br". Key concepts and suggestions: -- don't introduce too many new letters or rules too fast. Go slower than the child seems ready for. One new letter or sound per 1 or 2 days is plenty fast enough. -- once a letter or sound has been "introduced", have the child practice it many times every day so the child doesn't forget it again, and so the child gradually learns to say it more immediately upon seeing it. -- use phonics, not "whole word" method. With phonics, the child only has to learn about 100 rules and can then read most words in the language. With "whole word", they may seem better up to about the first 100 words or so, but after that reading is more of an effort than it is for the child who learned phonics instead. -- start with one sound per letter, preferably short vowels since this is the sound the letter usually makes when it appears alone. Hard g and hard c, too (as in got and cat). Introducing a second sound for a letter is like introducing a new letter and should be left for another day -- preferably weeks after the first letter-sound has been introduced. -- have the child learn to look at the letter and say the sound -- for example look at "A" and say "aa" (sounding like the a in cat). It helps to talk about the letter as if it's name is the sound: call "A" "aa" (not "ay"), and "T" a short, unvoiced "t" sound with no vowel (not "tee" or "tuh"). For example you might ask the child to hand you a magnetic letter: "Hand me that 'aa', please." The child may object that the letter is "ay", not "aa". You can avoid making a big deal about it, just saying "Yes, the NAME of the letter is 'ay', but the SOUND of the letter is 'aa'", and then just go on talking as if it's called "aa". You don't want the child to look at "A" and think "ay sounds like aa" and then say "aa". You want the child to just look at "A" and say "aa". There may be a pause of a second or two while the child tries to remember the sound; that's fine, and the pause will get gradually shorter over many repetitions if you give the child enough practice. But if the child is thinking something like "ay sounds like aa", it won't tend to get shorter. You can show the child a lot of letters with a lot of A's included, and ask the child to try to find "aa's". Have the child point to the "A's" and say "aa" (not "ay") when pointing to each one. Later you can do this exercise with more than one letter the child knows. You can do it with cereal boxes and things. -- avoid introducing similar-looking letters around the same time. If you're using lowercase letters, I suggest introducing "b" at least two weeks before introducing "d". It also helps to make them look different so they're not exactly mirror images. Similar advice applies to the pairs p,q; p,b; p,d; u,n; g,q; n,h. This is less of an issue if uppercase letters are taught first. -- Also avoid introducing similar-sounding letters around the same time. Confusion can occur with pairs such as m,n; f,s; short e and i (the sorts of sounds where you have to have trouble hearing how to spell someone's name over the telephone.) It's best if the first few letters introduced to a child have simple, basic, and very different sounds. For example, m and s are introduced first in the "100 Easy Lessons" book. -- Aim for the stage where the child can read any simple 3-letter word with a short vowel (e.g. vat, him, ban, cog, wet, cub etc; but not ask, ant, the, try etc., which are more complex) At this stage, in a very real sense the child is reading. There are many of these words. Give the child lots of practice with them to reach a level of confidence and ease for at least several days before gradually introducing more advanced rules such as "sh", soft g, long vowels, "br-", "-nk", etc. -- I introduced "r as the second letter, following a consonant" on one day (e.g. br, gr, pr etc.) and l as the second letter another day, and n as the second-last (e.g. "bent") another day, and s second-last as in "desk" another day, etc. So I was introducing br, tr, and pr all at once. This made sense to me and seemed to work fine. I don't think it would work as well to introduce bl and br on the same day. -- I think it's a little better to start with uppercase letters, but doesn't make a big difference. Uppercase letters have the advantage that they're less likely to be confused if they're upside down or reflected. They use more straight lines and are easier to draw. They appear more frequently in the material a child will be using in the early stages of reading: the larger print on cereal boxes and other packaging, signs on the street with names of streets and so on. -- Use games. They make it fun and allow for lots of repetition. -- I used the block game (with food) and it worked well. (as described in the " ... 60 days" book.) IME the food was not a bribe: it was healthy food the child was free to eat anyway with or without the game -- but it did make the game more fun. -- I invented a few phonics games, at least one of which is described on my website http://www.ncf.ca/~an588/par_home.html -- The book "... 100 Easy Lessons" uses its own system of letters and not everyone might want to use it. However, by reading it I learned some very important principles about the little steps children take when learning to read. I didn't use the system as such but learned a lot from the book. However, note that it says in the introduction that just about everyone who uses that system has children who learn very well to read. (Though someone emailed me that their child didn't like it.) -- Don't go too fast! Stick to very easy stuff, lots of repetition. It's so easy to think "Oh, my child is doing so well. My child is so intelligent. This is such a great method. I'm so good at teaching reading. My child can handle learning another letter today." But once the child begins to get confused, everything breaks down at once, everything has to be re-learned, the child gets frustrated and discouraged, and several days at least are lost. It's best to go slowly even when you believe your child is able to go faster. Think of it as laying a solid foundation so the child will remember the current material very confidently. In other words: don't judge the right speed by going faster and faster until your child begins to show signs of being overwhelmed. Choose a reasonable speed (e.g. one new letter or sound per day or per two days) and stick to it, or make it slower if it seems like a good idea, but resist the temptation to speed up. Rather than introducing new letters, think of more ways to practice the current letters so the child becomes even more confident and able to read those letters smoothly. -- "Go Dog, Go!" and "Hop on Pop" are good books for easy reading. Most of the Dr. Suess books are more advanced than that one. Catherine Woodgold 2004/04/24 http://www.ncf.ca/~an588/par_home.html