The most important skill a homeschooler teaches their children is learning to read. It can also be a subject that causes great anxiety. The rest of their education rests on the child’s ability to read and to read well.
There are two widely accepted methods for teaching a child to read: sight word memorization (whole word) and phonics. There are arguments for exclusively teaching one method over the other and each side has valid points. I prefer to combine the two methods and get the best of both worlds.
Here are some easy ways you can start teaching your little one to read and they only take minutes a day. The most important thing to remember is to be consistent and make it fun.
Read to your child. Do it everyday. Make it a fun ritual and a special time to be with you. This is the single most important action you can take to make your child a lifelong reader and the one on which everyone agrees.
Conversely, have them read to you. After the fiftieth reading of Llama Llama, they should have a good grasp of the story; so have them read it to you. Let them hold the book and recite the lines while you follow along with your finger under the words.
Turn on the Closed-captioning, even for Disney movies. This conditions the child to associate the written and spoken word. With the amount of times they will watch Frozen, it is almost like they are teaching themselves to read.
Phonics workbook – I have one with a timer which my little one loves to set. It is pre-set for 10 minutes and that is all we do. There is something about a set time limit that children respect. Also, this is something you must do with your child. Keep it light. I found that if I let my little guy draw funny pictures on the pages or use different colors for each answer he was more willing to do the work. Draconian right and wrong is for public school, you can relax. If they draw a square instead of circling the answer, that is alright.
Sight word folder – I loved this idea from Organized Homeschooler. She has a practical method for teaching Dolch sight words in just 10 minutes a day. Unfortunately, my son quickly became frustrated and I needed to come up with a different strategy. It happens. Just recognize that something isn’t working and find a different strategy.
Sight Word Game – As we were returning from a recent trip, we stopped to get food. In the kid’s meal was an interesting game that had various sight words on the board. I told my little one that if he could read the word he would get another turn. Magic. When we returned home I set about creating a board game that I could use to incorporate sight word learning and the Candy Land Sight Word Game was born. I took the game and placed gold dots on various spaces. (More dots in the beginning so if someone got the peanut they could catch up.) I then took some pretty card stock and wrote out the Dolch sight words on each one. I used a dotted paper to match my gold dots.) Play like usual except when the child lands on a dot they draw a word card. If they read it, they get another turn. I keep the cards that he has read at the top of the board so they can be reviewed each time we add a new one. Simple, yet effective.
While my little guy is coming along nicely in his reading, I would love to hear from you about the stategies that you have used. Please leave a comment.
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