The Best Way to Teach Kids to Read

By Liza McFadden

I’m a mom of two young students and work faithfully to nurture their joy of reading. While I read to them every night, though, it seems I’ve missed a few tricks as to the best way to teach reading.

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The National Institute for Literacy recently released its Early Literacy Report. For parents like me, interested in helping their children to be super-ready for school, I’ve taken this report and created from it a short to-do list about how to play with words.

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Knowing letters

Researchers call it “alphabet knowledge.” I think of it as if my kids were wearing superhero costumes while becoming “masters of the alphabet.” Their job: to learn the name of every letter and the sound each letter makes. My job: to switch on the TV closed-caption option so words are part of their every TV experience; to point to the beginning letter of words and say the sound of the letter.

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Sensitive hearing

It’s critical that children truly hear the sounds in words and play with them. The findings say super-ready kids have “phonological awareness,” which means they have supersensitive hearing. So we read fun poetry like Dr. Seuss books, and sing songs such as “Clap, Clap, Clap Your Hands,” where children clap to syllables.

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Instant recognition

By age 5, super-ready kids must be able to identify letters, numbers, colors, and objects in rapid and random order. So it’s not just knowing the numbers one to 10 in order; it’s important to recognize them quickly in any order.

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Writing it down

Super-ready kids must wield powerful pencils. While most of us spend lots of time reading bedtime stories, I’m not sure we’ve been as conscientious about writing skills. Specifically, at age 5 a child should be able to write his own name and write any letters that are called out. Try having your child write her name in all her books.

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Telling stories

Researchers call it developing a child’s “phonological memory.” It means super-ready kids have great recall; we know how they love to retell their favorite stories. Encourage your child to be a storyteller.

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Previous reading research suggested parents read to their kids 20 minutes a day. If you’ve been doing this, you’re ahead of the curve. But the takeaway here is that reading by itself is only one part of the equation. With a little more effort, we can enhance what and how our children learn and make the process more fun.