Teaching your child to read can seem like a daunting task, like anything else the first time you venture into the great unknown. I remember just blindly stumbling from one step to another not feeling I had a clear direction. If you’re looking for some guidance, please allow me to assist you. I will outline the process here, and then go into more detail on other posts.
Learning Letter Sounds and Letter Recognition
Starfall.com is a fun and free way to teach young children letter recognition and sounds. Depending on your child, you can start as early as you like. I typically started them at the age of two. I’d put them on my lap and click for them. They also have an app for $2.99, but the website is free.
Preschools do letter sounds and recognition over the course of a year. I bought a Pre-School curriculum and my daughter picked them up in two days. That was a waste of money.
Then I moved on to the Kindergarten Phonics Museum produced by Veritas Press. I used the Teacher’s Maunal and the Workbook. Cathy Duffy has a review here describing the whole kit they sell. I was given the entire set from a friend, but I personally wouldn’t consider the kit worth the expense. I did like the CD that comes with it, but that was more helpful for First Grade.
If you were teaching the letter m, you would review the sound that m makes and ask your child to raise their hand when they heard the m sound. m,k,g,m,p,t,n,m,o Pause and give you child time to respond. Then you could slowly read a list of words pausing after each word asking your child to tell you when you read a word that starts with m. Milk, Cow, Doll, Man, Baby, Mermaid, Bell, Match. This is a daily activity depending on what letter/s you are teaching or reviewing.
Learning to Recognize the sound of a letter at the end of a word:
I am sure many different schools of thought exist on everything that I described because let’s face it, God made us all unique and we think differently, too. That’s ok. If you want to do something different, feel free :)