Resources for Teaching Kids to Read: My Recommendations

My Experience Teaching My Kids to Read

You may remember in my very first blog post here at Between the Bookends that I was an early reader, and that lit the fire in me to teach my children to read early, too. I had never taught anyone to read before, so I searched out (and, in some cases, created) some tools and creative approaches for my kids. This month, I’m sharing my favorites here. So, if you have kiddos in your life and would like to give them the gift of literacy, I have a few recommendations that I hope you’ll enjoy. (I’ll be back to my regular Personalized DIY Books posts next month.)

One of the things that really blew me away as I taught each of my three children to read is that I honestly have no idea how reading is taught successfully in school. (Standing ovation kudos to the kindergarten and first grade teachers out there!) Each one of my three children was so different in their needs, desires, and approaches that I had to tailor my approach each time and just follow their leads to make it work. I learned that teaching someone to read is a very individualized experience. I really don’t know how I’d teach it to a group of kiddos.

For example, as I taught my oldest the the letters and sounds, he was very interested, but once I started putting them together into words and sounding them out, he wanted nothing to do with it. I thought maybe I was trying to start too early, so I just let it go and thought I’d try again in a few months. And what happened after that was that he basically came back a few months later being able to read. Looking back, I should have expected nothing different. He is an independent maverick who insists on doing everything his own way in his own time and doesn’t like (i.e. rarely accepts) help in any form. He was like that at 2, and he is still like that at 27. So his approach made a lot of sense! And it worked for him. All he needed was the tools, and then he’d just “teach himself,” thank you very much.

My middle one and youngest were more open to listening to me (ha ha, but #truth), so I was able to use the games, activities, and books with them that I’ll share with you here. I loved these great resources. It was such a fun time opening up the world of literacy to my little ones, and I have very fond memories of that time spent with each of them!

Start with Letters (all of them!) and their Sounds

I don’t remember if I figured this out on my own or if it was advice I heard and ran with, but I think one of the most important things to do when teaching a little one to read is to start with the fact that letters look two different ways. This is an A: A. And this is also an A: a. If you only teach the upper case, reading is so much harder, if not impossible.

One of my favorite tools for this was file folder games by Karen Finch. They came in a book that you’d make copies of on cardstock, then color, glue inside a file folder, laminate, cut out, and add velcro pieces to. I just discovered (25 years after teaching my first child to read) that they are now available singly via digital download at Finch Family Games. My kids LOVED these! They come with all kinds of themes such as colors, sorting, matching, etc., but here are a few I used relating to letters, cases, and sounds.

I think the tactile matching is so great! Even with the digital downloads you get to make these file folders now, I love that this is a hands-on game. I think kids love that.

One of the beginning ones I used just matched the upper case and lower case letters was this one, Dinosaur Dig. The lower case letters are laminated on the file folder. (I actually just used Con-Tact Covering instead of laminating.) Then the upper case pieces, also laminated, have one side of velcro on them while the lower case “bones” on the file folder have the other side of velcro. Then the kiddo sticks together the matching letters.

Once they started getting the hang of this, I also taught them what the letters sound like. This gave them the starter tools for putting words together and reading. Even without reading, the fact that we were discussing the sounds meant they could then play other games like this one, Mouse Magic, where you think about what the beginning sound of each word is (like “goat” and “garbage”) and match them together.

Most file folder games have velcro pieces, but with this one, the mouse goes into the magic hat.

I made my own game to review letter sounds, too: a fishing game! They loved this. Those are little paper clips on the fish “noses.” To play, we turned the fish over so the back (blank) sides were showing, then they would “catch” a fish with the magnet fishing pole. Then they would tell me the name of the letter and the sound it makes.

At first, we just played with the single-letter fish, the Bb and the Rr and etc. For letters that can have 2 sounds (like Gg; “giraffe and girl”), I added a number 2, and the kiddo would need to tell me both sounds it can make. I printed the vowels Aa and Ee, etc., in red to indicate that this one is a special letter called a vowel that is a little tricky because it can have different sounds depending on what else it’s next to, or what other vowels are in the word. Later, I added the two columns you see above that are combination letters, wh and ee and etc..

I went to an educational store in our town, too, and came away with a few fun games (below) that my kids really liked playing. This “Learning Games: initial consonants” was a fun one with 4 different game boards that we played a lot. They graduated to the two games on the right later. The “Phonics Made Easy” showed letters and letter combinations with pictures of example words (“oo” like “moon”), and later they were ready for “Easy Picture Words” with a 3-letter or 4-letter word on the front and the picture of it on the back. I’m sure you can find these online now!

In my experience, learning to read using games (and cheering on every win!) made it fun. The one-on-one attention, too, made it a personalized experience. We could go at each child’s pace and preference. And they had lots of games and activities to choose from so it didn’t feel like they were learning something or “drilling.” It was very low-pressure. Honestly, it was just really fun time together!

Learn-to-Read Books

When it’s time to move from reading single words like the flashcards in the “Easy Picture Words” shown above, I highly recommend the Phonics Reader series from Usborne Books. My sister introduced me to Usborne when my kids were little, and in addition to Dr. Seuss and other traditional early-reader books, Usborne books were absolutely a formative part of my kids’ growing up years. They’re still quoted in our family today!

The Phonics Reader series is the one I recommend first. It included Big Pig on a Dig, Fat Cat on a Mat, and Ted in a Red Bed when my kids were learning to read.

Although they are so fantastic as beginning books for kids learning to read, one of my personal favorite parts of these books was inside the back cover. As someone without any formal training who was trying to teach a little one to read, I found these explanations very helpful!

In fact, those explanations were what caused me to add letter combinations to my fishing game. They also made explaining the weirdness of English a little easier!

25 years after I started using them, Ted in a Red Bed and Big Pig on a Dig are still available, in addition to many new ones such as Bee Makes Tea and Shark in the Park. Usborne Books is now available through Paper Pie, and if you don’t already know a brand partner, you can use that link.

Have Fun!

This is the most important part. Especially when you start early, there’s no deadline or crunch time. (I and all three of my children read between ages 2 1/2 and 3 1/2. It’s possible!) So just take your time and play games and do activities and have fun! Mix it up a little and enjoy the process together!