Tips for Teaching Reading

Reading is the number one priority of any teacher.  Your homeschooled child may be an expert on photosynthesis, equestrian skills, the piano, or the Civil War, but without good reading skills, he will always be limited to what other people tell him. His vulnerability to false information will handicap him for life.  On the other hand, an elementary child who has missed a semester or two of science can easily catch up over the summer with a few good books. 

 

Most of what is called “phonics” today is not bona fide phonics.  It’s a half-n-half variety that employs phonics part-time and teaches a bevy of sight words that make kindergarteners look like Rhodes Scholars—for a short while, anyway.  It almost always catches up with the child, though.  By fourth grade, students are encountering many words they have not memorized or even seen before.  If they have not mastered the skill of “sounding out” unfamiliar words, they will become guessers.  Guessing kills comprehension as well as any desire to read the child may have had.   After all, who wants to read nonsense?

 

Here’s a step-by-step plan for teaching phonics.  These tips are not designed to help the “eager beavers,” who have probably skipped through some of these stages on their own just through natural ability.  I hope today that I can encourage the moms out there whose children are not interested in reading, or who are frustrated by methods that are not working.  It’s possible you are not a strong reader yourself and are intimidated by the prospect of setting the course of education for your child.  Maybe these steps will lend a hand for you as well!

 

1.  Letter sounds. 

 

Why teach letter names?  Other than singing the alphabet song, kindergarteners do not need the letter names.  Phyllis Schlafley, the famous pro-life activist, mentioned this on a radio broadcast many years ago.  Consequently, I have used this method on all six of our children, and the older five are all excellent readers.  (Josh is still a first semester kindergartener.)

 

Remember, kindergarteners won’t even be using long vowel sounds until they have mastered the basics of early reading, and they don’t need consonant names until they need to learn how to alphabetize (second or third grade).  For Valentin kindergarteners, the alphabet song is done with the phonics sounds only.  J 

 

2.  Two-letter blends. 

 

Once the child has mastered the letter sounds, begin practicing each consonant joined with each vowel.  Two-letter flash cards (“blend cards”)  or blend “ladders” are very helpful, but you can always make your own and laminate them. 

 

            ta                    ma                  la                     ba                   na                   da

            te                    me                  le                     be                   ne                   de

            ti                     mi                   li                      bi                    ni                    di

            to                    mo                  lo                    bo                   no                   do

            tu                    mu                 lu                    bu                   nu                   du

 

At this stage, keep the combinations in this order, without exception.  With each consonant, the child begins to predict the pattern, which is helpful at first. 

 

Do not move on to step three until the child is able to read the letters as one sound.  In other words, this should sound like “ta,” not “t . . . . a”, with a space in the middle. 

 

Watch out for sound reversals.  You may notice your child reading backwards, substituting “am” for “ma”, or “ed” for “de.”  The key for these children is to re-train the brain by covering up the letters with your hand and uncovering them one at a time.  This tendency does not automatically mean your child is dyslexic, but I would have to guess that it might expose a right-brained dominance. 

 

Right-brained children tend to “clutch” information in clumps rather than walking across a word one letter at a time.  Think of a large claw, reaching down and grabbing the word like a bundle of spaghetti noodles and mixing up the letters in the process.  This natural tendency is what makes our right-brained friends and children artistic, creative, and visionary.  They are demonstrating their ability to obtain large amounts of information at a time rather than relying on steps, words, and lists.  To grossly oversimplify a very complex (and intriguing!) subject, most of us are “word- oriented” or “picture -oriented.”  Picture-oriented children may be more likely to start reversing letters.   

But, the brain can be retrained.  By using a bookmark or 3 x 5 card, children with reversing tendencies can expose one letter at a time as they read, and thus retrain their brains.    

 

(If your child shows signs of dyslexia, there is a great book I can recommend for you—written by a dyslexic.  It’s called The Gift of Dyslexia, by Ron Davis.  You will appreciate your “backwards child” a whole lot more after reading this book!)

 

3.  Two-letter blend cards, mixed up.

 

Mix up the vowel sounds within each consonant group. 

 

            to                                            bi       

            ta                                            bu

            ti                                             ba

            tu                                            be

            te                                            bo

 

This stage is now requiring more careful reading (even though these aren’t words yet).  The child is having to watch closely to see what the vowel sound is. 

 

4.  Blend cards, mixed up even more. 

                            

Mix up the entire set of cards. 

 

            li

            to

            ba

            cu

            si

            ma

 

 

5.  Three-letter words.

 

Add a third letter to the blends he can already read.

 

            to  +   m  =   tom

            ma +  n =  man

            be + d = bed

 

At each stage of the reading process (and beyond kindergarten), be on alert for evidence that the child is reading letters that he has not come to yet in the word.  He may be using his “claw” method rather than letting his eyes reach for one letter or blend at a time. 

 

*Advanced readers see words as a whole, but inexperienced readers should not make this a practice. 

 

6.  More advanced rules for phonics.

 

One of the handy tools that we have used with all of our children is a book that used to be commonplace in Christian schools.  I grew up with it at my school in Ohio, and the copy we have is from my husband’s Christian school in Michigan!  It’s called the Victory Drill Book.  I suppose it fell out of popularity over the years because it employed timed reading, which can be frustrating for early readers and might lead to reading difficulties.  If you search for it, you will have to hunt through ebay or other used book websites.  As far as I know, it is out of print—which is unfortunate.

 

The strong advantage of the Victory Drill Book is that it isolates each phonics rule and gives the child practice at reading words that specifically apply.  For example, here is a partial list from the first page of the Victory Drill Book, using the short “a” sound: 

 

pat

tan

map

dad

van

sad

Sam

map

bag

nap

fan

jam

 

By page 72, it gets pretty exciting: 

 

tomorrow

yesterday

understand

unselfishly

awkwardly

transportation

invitation

Americanism

misunderstand

impractical

patiently

extraordinary

wonderful

Mississippi

 

In our Christian school, passing page 72 was awarded with a great deal of fanfare.  Our teachers presented us a Bible in chapel in front of the entire school.  We even got to select the color of our Bible!  Many times parents came to see the presentation and to take pictures after chapel, with our teachers. 

 

But best of all:  Someone had taught us how to read. 

 

It’s truly one of the nicest things you can do for a child.