My 3 year old wants to learn to read, where do I go from here?

[kentuckymom]

Kittygirl (3 years 9 months) started learning letters and sounds around age 2 and at this point she knows every letter name (upper and lowercase), every sound (she can't say them all due to articulation issues, but she tries to say them all and recognizes them all).

 

Today she was looking at a word search and saying the letter names and sounds. Then she turned to me and said, "Mom, can you teach me to read words?"

 

I was thinking it would be nice to teach her to read before kindergarten, but I didn't want to start anything more unless and until she asked. She's asked, so now I need to decide how to proceed. I know that hypothetically I could forge ahead without a program, just continuing to read a lot of books, pointing out letters and sounds, and trying to teach her to blend. However, because a) I've never taught anyone to read before and b ) there's a history of dyslexia on both sides of the family, I'd be more comfortable using a program of some kind.

 

So, fire away. What program do you recommend? Feel free to ask me questions about her personality, apparent learning style, etc, if that will help.

[mom2bee]

I would go with The Reading Lesson; Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Lessons.

 

Its very gentle, easy and toddler friendly . Just do as much as you can in 10 minutes and then put it away. You can work on blending gently with this book with the Say if slow, say if fast game. Do a little syllable work each day also.

 

Get a couple sets of Bob Books and dust off your library card.

[Sarah0000]

My youngster learned exactly the way you described: just reading aloud, me showing how to sound out and blend, and when he was ready he started reading full books on his own. I am looking through Phonics Pathways from the library to see if there are any holes. I really like the look of it. It seems like it would be fun for younger children. I did order LOE Phonogram game book and cards to drill the rarer phonograms. Those he definitely did not pick up from the way he learned to read.

[NoseInABook]

I taught my older three to read with Ordinary Parent's Guide To Teaching Reading and the Bob books to encourage them. Each one was reading at 4. We'll see what the littlest one does as he's newly 3.

[desertflower]

I think it depends on your child. OPGTR is great, but dry. My friend used it and it seemed that her child was reading in no time. I use phonics pathways and love it. However, if your child is a kinesthetic learner something like all about reading or logic of English is better.

 

Some I see Sam books are free online. Progressive Phonics is free online as well.

 

And yes as always read read read to her. :)

[EMC]

My dd is 3 and she has been begging me to teach her to read for a long time. We started in August with readingbear.org and reading Bob books. She loves it and is making good progress. I have Phonics Pathways that I am using with her brother. She is now asking to do that as well. They also like to play games. Good luck with whatever you choose. 

[Syllieann]

I like Aar: no writing, cute little games, includes readers, and very incremental.

[Amethyst]

Bob books. (Are they still out there? Or am I showing my age? I used these with my now 22 year old son when he was about 4)

[Chris in VA]

I used PP, supplemented with Bob Books, Primary Phonics books, homemade books, and Montessori-type games and objects.

 

I like programs that:

 

Don't link writing ability to reading (so, some use wooden letters)

Don't involve special fonts (so no 100 Easy Lessons for us)

Don't involve sight words (I add a few in near the beginning, but just family names or words like is  and the)

Don't teach a lot of phonics rules (just very basic--I pick up more in the "encoding" stage--spelling)

Only give one sound of the letter at a time (so we didn't learn ALL the sounds A can make, just the short sound until we got into silent E and such)

 

Keep reading to her above the level at which she can read, in order to inspire a love of reading and to tune her ear to good vocab and sentence structure.  

 

You might also just try a moveable alphabet. I love wooden letters--I get mine at the Dollar Store and repaint them red and blue. I pick up 7 or 8 sets and put them in a sewing box that has small spaces for each letter. Then I do the Montessori thing and let kids pick a card or an object (3 letter CVC words to start, like "cat" or "box") and use the letters to spell it out. I don't correct the spelling but it gives practice in hearing the sounds. Many times this exercise leads to reading, but the idea is not to have them read the words. It'll come later, after they've worked with the sounds enough.

I use this to supplement PP. They love the little objects and the letters! I use a small work rug to put it on--even a handtowel works.

[BlsdMama]

We used OPGTTR with Sarah when she was two. She started reading simple three letter words shortly before age three so I can vouch that you can use it with very young children.

[MotherGoose]

I used PP, supplemented with Bob Books, Primary Phonics books, homemade books, and Montessori-type games and objects.

 

I like programs that:

 

Don't link writing ability to reading (so, some use wooden letters)

Don't involve special fonts (so no 100 Easy Lessons for us)

Don't involve sight words (I add a few in near the beginning, but just family names or words like is and the)

Don't teach a lot of phonics rules (just very basic--I pick up more in the "encoding" stage--spelling)

Only give one sound of the letter at a time (so we didn't learn ALL the sounds A can make, just the short sound until we got into silent E and such)

 

Keep reading to her above the level at which she can read, in order to inspire a love of reading and to tune her ear to good vocab and sentence structure.

 

You might also just try a moveable alphabet. I love wooden letters--I get mine at the Dollar Store and repaint them red and blue. I pick up 7 or 8 sets and put them in a sewing box that has small spaces for each letter. Then I do the Montessori thing and let kids pick a card or an object (3 letter CVC words to start, like "cat" or "box") and use the letters to spell it out. I don't correct the spelling but it gives practice in hearing the sounds. Many times this exercise leads to reading, but the idea is not to have them read the words. It'll come later, after they've worked with the sounds enough.

I use this to supplement PP. They love the little objects and the letters! I use a small work rug to put it on--even a handtowel works.

I agree with these recommendations. Your 3 yo doesn't want to memorize rules, she wants to read. With something like OPGTR, she will be reading simple words--CAT, COT, CUT, etc. I used OPGTR, but really it was more for me than it was for my dd. You can easily do it without putting the book in front of the child. When reading aloud, I make sure to run my finger under the words as I read. I guess that's sort of a cheating way of teaching sight words--but they start to follow the text and see where the words and sounds fit together.

[Guest ummMohsin]

I began using "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" with my son at that age. It got boring half-way through and required lesson adaptions, but really gave him a solid head-start. I'd suggest doing two lessons a week.

[Btervet]

I started 100 EZ lessons with Bob books and I See Sam readers at that age. We liked the special font in 100 EZ lessons, and the Bob/Sam books were great at inspiring confidence. At 3, I think OPGTR would of been to difficult. We are going through it quickly now at 4, after finishing 100 EZ lessons, just for learning the rules. 

 

Before you start any program though, I'd make sure she can blend sounds, like c - a - t to cat. I *think* that is developmental, though it's possible it could be taught.

[Tanikit]

I used OPGTR with both my children at 3 - but not as written. I wrote out the word lists much bigger than the print in the book, used color and with my youngest I would look up pictures on the net that she could color of the words she was reading. My children did also have some sight words before this however which made moving to books relatively easy. Also if my child wanted to read any word then I would teach it to them - I remember my 2.5 year old sounding out the word "opposites."

 

As for blending - many people say this causes trouble. With my children I just blended for them - it took about a month of blending daily for my eldest to blend by herself and a little longer than that with my younger child. Most programmes expect children to know how to do this by themselves - but I found with my children that hearing how it is done by an adult helped tremendously. I use a similar method now with my youngest who has speech issues (there is a f-ish to help her say the f sound correctly - here instead of blending all sounds I just concentrate on the one she struggles with as she already knows how to blend the rest.)

 

Other programmes I used with my 2 and 3 year olds: Starfall, I see Sam books, Jolly phonics sound videos (on youtube); we looked at Progressive phonics but did not use it much and many many books and simple readers. 

[kentuckymom]

Thanks for all the recommendations! I haven't made a final decision, but I've looked at a few samples, and I think The Reading Lesson may be what I'm looking for - simple, gentle, and not super expensive. I'll post a new thread at some point to tell about any progress we make with whatever I choose.