You do not have to be a literacy expert to understand the science of reading! Anyone can become a literacy advocate and help teach a child to read. It all begins with talking, singing, rhyming, reading aloud, and all of the other fun ways children learn language in their very early years (these are called pre-reading skills).
Humans are hard-wired to learn language through listening. Therefore, exposing children to lots and lots of language early on builds knowledge and vocabulary, which are essential components for language and reading comprehension later on.
Reading aloud to children
One of the best methods to build vocabulary, background knowledge, and other pre-reading skills is to read aloud to children as early and as often as possible, from a wide array of books, even in the womb. Storytime at the library and home with family, especially older siblings, develops pre-reading skills.
As children listen to a book, they can be taught to recognize individual sounds in words and learn to distinguish or pick out sounds in words as they hear them (this is called phonological awareness). Helping children hear sounds in words can be as simple as asking them while reading aloud, “which of the sounds in these words sound the same, and which parts sound different?”
Visit KidsRead2Kids, which in partnership with Teach My Kid to Read, offers tips for interactive read-alouds and video recordings of children performing read-alouds.
Distinguishing sounds in words
Blending and segmenting are two of the most important skills we develop as emerging readers (this is called phonemic awareness). Blending sounds to build words (such as /k/ /a/ /t/, to make “cat”), and segmenting words into individual sounds (such as removing /k/ to make “at,” or substituting /b/ for /k/, to make “bat”), are crucial skills to develop because they lay the foundation for learning to read words on a page.
Rhyming is really engaging for children to learn to blend and segment sounds and parts of words, so using books like Dr. Seuss and nursery rhymes is a fun and effective way to build phonemic awareness.
Using phonics and decodable books
Connecting sounds to individual letters and groups of letters/syllables/word parts on a page (phonics) helps a child learn to sound out words on a page (decoding).
Decodable books enable children to practice making these letter-sound connections. By learning a letter-sound rule at a time, practicing that rule, and progressing into more advanced rules of decoding, a child can slowly begin to understand what each letter and letter combination sounds like (phonemic awareness), looks like (phonics), and how those letters form words and sentences (fluency) to make meaning (comprehension).
One notable phonics and decoding program is Beginning Reading Instruction/Advanced Reading Instruction (BRI/ARI) a highly researched, evidence-based system of reading instruction. The first level of the first set is available in our store as an early literacy starter kit, or you can purchase the complete program through our affiliate program with Piper Books on Amazon.
Teach My Kid to Read can provide *free* e-book versions of the BRI/ARI program to families and caregivers who sign up. For older children, we recommend The Hornet Literacy Primer , a phonics system proven to help older children with decoding and spelling.
Encouraging handwriting
Simultaneous instruction in handwriting builds strong letter-sound connections for children and helps them remember and differentiate between letters and sounds. You can reduce letter reversals and confusion by teaching children to form letters correctly from the start while saying the sounds aloud.