5 Steps To Teaching Your Toddler To Read

When toddlers start school, the most basic – and most vital – skill they need to master as early as possible is literacy.

The ability to read is the key to everything else they will learn afterwards, and without becoming a competent reader as early as possible, they will quickly fall behind their classmates.

Everyone who has a baby has big hopes and dreams for their future, but without learning to read, none of those dreams can ever come true. Think about it:

Do you want your child to do well at school?

Will you feel proud when they come home with a report card full of As?

Is your child’s future important to you?

And do you think ensuring they have a great education is one of the most important things you can do to make that happen?

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, wife of former US president John F. Kennedy, once said

“there are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all”

and how true that is.

Reading can open a child’s eyes to the world and broaden their horizons. But on a much more basic level than that, if a child can’t read, they won’t be able to get through school and they simply won’t be able to get ahead in life.

Ok, so let’s get something straight at this point.

Most kids eventually learn to read.

Very few children leave school without being able to read at even the most basic level. But what we’re talking about here is what happens if your child falls behind right from the beginning.

Imagine what could happen:

• Your child will be behind the other kids in school right from the start
• Your child might end up in tiered groups for slower children
• Your child will end up being labeled dumb by his or her classmates
• Your child will lose confidence and motivation
• Your child might end up having to repeat years and fall even further behind

The world is becoming more and more competitive, and kids who don’t get off to a great start from an early age can already find themselves at a disadvantage.

In fact, a proficient level of literacy is arguably more important now in the information age than ever before in history.

To use computers, tablets or smartphones and to be able to communicate in the modern workplace all require the ability to read and write well.

Without this ability, a child can only ever hope to find the most menial and low-paid jobs available.

While it’s true that in the US, we have some of the most dedicated and hard-working teachers in the world, teachers who are willing to put in the time and effort to help our kids fulfil their potential, the truth is, the system is often against them.

We know that funding cuts over the years mean teachers are not always given the resources they need to bring out the absolute best in every child and some kids will inevitably slip through the net.

Are you willing to leave your child’s future to chance?

Of course you’re not.

But what’s the solution?

Nowadays, more and more parents are realizing that their kids’ future is not something they are willing to leave in the hands of others.

Understanding how important it is for kids to make a strong start at school, they are doing all they can to give them every advantage possible – and many are now taking it upon themselves to teach their kids to read even before they start school.

This means that when they walk into that classroom on their first day, they already have a big advantage over the other kids in their class. They have the confidence they need to go on doing well, setting them on the path to a better life.

So how you do it?

If you have made the crucial decision to give your kid the big advantage that learning how to read from an early age can provide, there are five steps to follow:

Step 1 : Start early

If you can’t start early, start now!

Don’t wait until your child is already in preschool, you should start as soon as they are born.

Right from the beginning, make a point of reading to your baby.

It doesn’t matter that they don’t understand anything at that age – but as they grow, they will already be used to hearing you read.

As your baby becomes a toddler, he or she will already have learned to love listening to stories and books will already be part of their world.

Reading to your baby will also strengthen the bond between you and they will associate reading with positive emotions.

From there, learning to read for themselves will just be a natural next step.

The key here is for your child to develop a love for reading and books at the earliest age that will last their whole life.

Step 2 : Teach the alphabet

When a child is ready to start learning to read, the next step is to learn the alphabet.

Teach them to say the letters of the alphabet and focus on the sounds of the letters, not the name – so “ah, buh, kuh” and not “ay, bee, see”.

Step 3 : Start building words

When a child has mastered the sounds of the letters of the alphabet, it is time to move on to building words.

Teach kids to break words down into individual sounds rather than learning words as a whole. It is widely accepted that this method greatly speeds up their learning when compared with old-fashioned, traditional methods.

As they are learning, they can practice “sounding out”, piecing the individual letters together to make complete words.

At the same time, they should also learn to recognize common “sight words”, words like “their” and “women”, that don’t follow standard spelling rules.

These words should be learned “as they are”.

Step 4 : Increase the level

When your child is ready to progress, make sure you provide interesting and stimulating reading material.

By this point, your child should already enjoy reading and this is when you can start to give them simple books to read for themselves.

Make sure you focus on comprehension, not just reproducing the sounds on the page. Talk about the stories, ask simple questions and make sure your child is engaging with the text and understands what is going on.

Step 5 : Continue to supervise and provide a role model

Keep reading together. Sometimes it can be personal, silent reading; other times, you can have your child read out loud to you and discuss the story after.

Make reading a part of both of your lives and help to build a reading habit. It is one of the best habits we can develop, and it will serve your child well for the rest of their life.

If you follow these five simple steps, your child will soon learn to read and will gain a great advantage over the others in class. You will have set him or her on the path to a better life in the future.

The real problem is, this all takes a lot of planning and preparation. You need to think ahead and start from when a child is first born, and you need to keep working on it right up until they start school and beyond.

However much you want to do the right thing for your child to give him or her a great start in life, it might not always be practical.

Maybe you don’t have the time to make this plan and stick to it over such an extended period – or maybe you found this article too late and you have already missed step one and now it’s too late.

Well, the great news is, there is another option, a ready-made program that will take all the time and effort out of helping your child learn to read.

It’s an option that is ideal for parents of kids who are already at school and are showing signs of struggling, but it’s also perfect for preschoolers whose parents are desperate to give their kids a little leg-up in life.

English teacher, educational expert and mother-of-two Sarah Shepherd has developed a method that does all the planning work for you.

Through the embarrassing experience of having her own child struggle to learn and extensive research on how to help, she realized that the education board is keeping a secret from parents that is preventing their kids from excelling at school.

With this new knowledge, she developed a method that breaks everything down into simple, easy to follow steps, providing you with fun and structured lessons that really work.

Sarah’s method has produced some stunning results, too. Kids who were previously having difficulty learning to read have suddenly shot to the top of the class while kids as young as 18 months have developed reading skills that put many five-year-olds to shame.