Hello everybody!
I asked this question in one of topics but I’d repeat it.
My 3y.8m son doesn’t read at all. We read (I mean presentations with words, then short texts and verses) since May. But it’s about 4 months of actual time. We read paper books also every day with rare exceptions.
How should his ability to read display? I see he can;t recognize words at all, even short.
How did you “make” your kids show they can read??
Did they begin by themselves?
How that happend?
How many time should pass before a child starts to read words? sentences?
What additional means you use? games (what kind of)? what else?
It’s interesting for me concerning children older than 2 y/o who can speak good already.
I think it;s my fault and 'm losing assurance I can teach him… And I wonder what exactly I do wrong.
You haven’t done anything wrong and any time spent teaching and reading is useful you certainly aren’t doing any harm. My son is 3y5m and without prompting will only occasionally sound out words himself. I’m sure your son knows a lot more than you are giving him credit for. What we did was start a phonics program with ours and we do a lesson a day and also have him read a book a day. For phonics lessons we use The ordinary parents guide to teaching reading. My son already knew all his letters and letter sounds so we started after the point in the book where letter sounds were taught. There is also how to teach your chld to read in 100 easy lessons. We didn’t like that one because they use some odd notation. DadDude also has created some flashcards that he uses as part of a flashcard program which in essense covers the same phonics rules. Then at a later point in the day or right after if your child has the attention span have him read a book to you. You can start off with Bob books and move on to other phonetic readers. Your son may be reluctant to read to you because of lack of confidence so if you make it easy for him he may be more likely to volunteer answers. Other things we did which were helpful were preschool prep sight word videos and reading eggs online. Good luck and keep trying.
Hi, Anatastaiya,
Yes, Linzy’s right, you’ll have to teach him lots of sight words like the , a , this , what…,
at least 50- 200 common sight words. Besides Sight words DVDs, you have to play lots of games or make individualized photo picture words, like " I am Happy." " This is my cat." …,tailor made to his interest, so to get him enjoy his reading game sessions.
Keep up your good work and you’ll see him read someday. Keep trying!
I took about half a year before I really see result. Of course, I meet the child once a week only.
Have Fun!
Cheers, Mable
Thanks for support!
It’s absolutely clear and true that any lessons we have are to his good. But I want much more lol
I’m calm again and 'm going to move further
I see
thanks again!
I have a 2.5 year old that is ready and I have a 16 month old that is reading, sometimes it just takes more persistence and patience. This is what I did. I made or bought foam letters for them to play with around the house, I showed flashcards to them after we ate in our high chairs, we then got LR and created my own shows wiht the alphabet, we use www.starfall.com all the time, we played iwth magnetic letters, and numbers, we have foam letter puzzles, and wooden alphabet puzzles, I made books for each boy just from mommy (that helps a lot from mommy) my 2.5 year old still cherishs those books, we read tons and tons of books and flashcards, I made flashcard mini file folder games, and lapbooks, we also used pudding to practice writing our alphabet, and our dry erase boards, I also use felt sticky letters on wooden blocks for them to trace, if he can’t recognize the letters yet then that is your first key, once the letter concepts comes then the sounds then reading. We use severla website one that I highly recomend is www.dreamenglish.com with the worksheets that they give as well, and of course LR and starfall, they too have worksheets and books to print for free to go along with the movies.
You aren’t doing anything wrong, befor emy son started reading I had to create a curriculum just for him, it was CARS…cars…cars. Then his reading took off wiht a blast however the younger one I have having more difficulty with but I know he will get it eventually, so will yours. I may have already told you all of this before but everything that you do helps no matter how small it is, just reading to him and pointing to the words is awesome as well.
Keep up with the good work, and just relaxt it will come.
Also we play a game where I place a flashcard on the table and he picks the letters out from the magnetic ones and places them on the board, of course most of the time they aren’t in order but he tries.
also there is a toy from Walmart that hangs on the fridge and helps them to sound the letters out, and to recognize the letters, etc. I have had good reports on this toy, I think is is 14.00 to 19.00 we don’t have one yet, but I have heard a great deal about it from other parents.
I have a fun game for learning verbs. I hold up the verb flashcard, call out the word, then the kids have to do it. Soon the kids are calling out the words themselves. I make it exciting. Like if the words is “run”, I say “run, run, run,” and get them running very fast. By time we are done the kids are tired and giggling. Make the words exciting - run, jump, hop, roll, spin, walk, etc. We also use a ball for “kick” and “throw.” We also pretend we are airplanes for “fly” and pretend to “swim.” We also “hide” and “look.” On nice days, it is fun to play it outside. They don’t even realize it is a learning game. They just think it’s a regular game like “hide and seek.”
Good Luck, Lori
could you please write her whole/ correct nick. I’ve tried to find her here and to have a look at her works but there’re tons of MOMMY nicks at the site:)
I take my cues from Doman method. And there’s absolutely contrary approach. whole word → letters. And moms who’ve got success with Doman’s method say the same thing: their children learned to read words at first and then to recognize letters.
Sure, there must be a game during the studying.
I think she means that she tells her boys that it’s “just from mommy” as in she made it especially for them, and that it makes them want to read more knowing she made it just for them.
Quite a few people on here are making their own books, so many I couldn’t specify anyone in particular.
Oh, I see now 
I didn’t think about that lol
Wit works woe lol lol
motheroffaith no spaces
And yes I tell the boys that it is just from mommy and mommy made it just for them. They see when I cut it apart and glue it etc. so they know that I actually did make it. I make all sorts of books with various ideas and different materials. You can buy the board slate books to glue the pages on. I have several posts on here and videos about making books. there are tons of other great hand made books by lots of others on here as well.
Also if you have several children that can use the same book you can tell them that it is yours and they can borrow the book. I knew a family that had 7 children all stairsteps and the mother would tell them that the bike or book was hers and they could use it and borrow it but they had to return it and share it. Hey it works.
As far as reading we started out with whole words as well. You have got to see my oldests room and the fridge and the walls, tons of words, then we did the alphabet then he read even more. So I do agree that with some children words first does work but for my youngest, no it doesn’t work. He feels overwhelmed so we have started with letters and phonics.
Also I have developed a spelling board game you can see it on the post Zac the Rat. I have tons of things on here about reading and implamenting ? games like the can of fun, the alphabet spinning game, the word spinning game, made out of recycled objects from inside the home.
Maybe one thing is to try different types (I mean size, shape, etc) of books, differnet textures of books. That helps. Also for my son I had to create a reading curricula on cars… he loves cars. If I haven’t already said that?
Also trying a word strip to match the texted in the book will help as well. The word strips meaning haveing all of the words that you need on a strip of paper, then allowing the child to place the strips in order to form a sentence matching the sentence in the book. I will have a video of that soon on here after the kids go to bed. so watch for that.
Mother of Faith,
I don’t want to hijack Anastasiya’s thread but I just want to say I like your ideas. My daughter made good progress and had been reading but now has stopped. So we are taking a break from reading lessons/practice. In the meanwhile I am collecting fresh ideas for when we start anew. I’m going find your instruction for making our own books.
Thanks, Lori
I have uploaded some new videos on cute games with books. They may give you some ideas as well. look for more to come. I am working on putting together some new stuff for the next year.
but it seems to be broken Doman’s method. There’s nothing about phonics or letters separately. And I met some mom’s experience that children drew conclusions by themselves about rules of reading. So I actually don’t want to confuse him with letters yet.
Am I wright??
I had a look at your ideas. Thank you very much. One head is good and two are better:)
I don’t know much, but I don’t think your child will be confuse if he learns some phonics. My son is 28 months and I showed lots of sight words and he watches the talking word and letter factory and he is reading. He is reading sentences and sounding words. honestly, I am not doing much with him for several months now. He is just doing is thing by himself. I am totally busy trying to pass my classes.
I hear you about passing classes, me too. Anway, every child is different, the thing is trying something new in my opinion for a short period of time isn’t going to hurt. Getting the right method of teaching is about the child’s ability it isn’t about what method you try it is all about the child. Every child is different, proven methods may work on some children but some it may not. I myself have 2 totally different learners, so therefore if I choose to use a certain method for both I have to modify the content for the other one. Trial and error is some cases. I’m not saying go ahead and start with phonics and so on, but probably as stated before I have a 16month who isn’t talking very much at 1 my other son was talking in complete sentences, but the 2nd one isn’t wanting to talk hardly at all so I started a cute phonics program www.dreamenglish.com, with my 2nd child at age 6 months we started flashcard training along with word walls in his room, I can’t tell you when he started reading I can’t remember, my 16month old is now pretending to read so i think I made a good choice. Like I said all are differnet.
I agree with mother of faith, each child is different. I have been teaching my niece to read, we started when she was just over a year old, and now she is 4. She has gone through phases, sometimes showing more interest than other times. When she goes through a period of not being interested in flash-cards, books, or anything to do with reading, I just give it a rest for a little while so it doesn’t become a ‘chore’ for her, because kids learn best when it’s fun for them.
Recently I discovered a cute website http://www.starfall.com/ which has helped add variety to her reading exercises. She also enjoys Little Reader, and though she rarely says the words out loud, I know that she can recognize most of the words. She still doesn’t want to read from books, but as linzy posted earlier, sometimes our kids can do more than we give them credit for.
We also created a sort of lotto game with the words she knows, so she doesn’t have to say them out loud (which she often doesn’t like to do), but when she hears the word read aloud, she can put the card on the right place on her game board.
*we used card paper made 3 game boards, 9 words per board, each word on its own square. Then we cut out smaller cards with the same words on them. I say “does anyone have the word ‘play’ on their game board?” if so, then the card is placed on the appropriate square.
This way I can see which words she knows better when she’s not in the mood for saying them aloud. From time to time I change the words in the game, taking away old ones and adding a new ‘game board’ with words from LR, or other flash cards.
thanks to 123hereicome, I already open the cute website, not even my daughter like it, I am also like the website.
Hi,
Your son is only young. Not all children are ready for reading until they go to school. Sometimes if you push reading onto children they will not grow up to enjoy the experience.
I have seen kids that were not reading or ready to read come into yr 1 with no or little knowledge about literacy and within the 1st term, they were ready and reading.
When a child learns to read will not determine the success they will have.
Having a positive reading role model and exploring texts together is far more important.
Just enjoy books/literacy and he will enjoy books too. The reading will come later.