How To Teach Your Child To Read | Tips

Before my daughter entered Kindergarten, she had difficulty in Reading. She only knew a few sight words and of course, a few CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words. During the summer break, I enrolled her to a Reading/Writing class. I was expecting the teacher to, well, teach my child how to  READ. I later found out that the teacher expected my daughter to read words such as Mountain, Fountain etc. Hmmm, duh?!

At the end of the summer class, most of the kids in the class ended up memorizing the short poem as part of their final performance. I was so disappointed to say the least. It's a total waste of money if you ask me.

Ba Be Bi Bo Bu

After that, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Why? Because I was so shocked to learn how much a 36-hour (3 x a week for 3 months) reading tutorial cost.---> Php 15,000!!!  I don't want to spend that much money and yet I don't like my daughter to lag behind once she entered Kindergarten.

One of my friends suggested the use of flash cards- a sample of which you can find above. It helped that I enrolled my daughter when she was 3 years old in Learning Library where she learned the alphabet sounds. It was a short stint (only a month) but well worth the money.

Tip #1: Learning can be fun. Flip the cards down then take turns to pronounce the letter combination.

Flip & Spell | Fun with 3-Letter Word

Initially, I taught her the sound of two letters (CV) combined like BA, BE, BI, BO, BU (like how we pronounced it in Filipino) and so on. When she mastered that in a week, we progressed to reading CVC words. I found a Flip & Spell CVC book in one of the local toy stores we frequent to.

Tip #2: Flip/arrange the letters and let the child read the CVC word; Pronounce the word and let the child flip/arrange the letters.

Make Reading A Habit

I began reading story books to my daughter when she was about a few months old. It became a routine before she sleeps at night. 

Earlier on, I point to the words as I read to her. As we progressed, she can already pronounced the words that I pointed. She was 5.3 years old when she began to read short stories. 

Tip #3: You can test your child's reading comprehension by asking questions about the short story he/she has just read; You can let the child read the instructions given on worksheets. 

As a mom, I felt really proud when she finally learned how to read. All my efforts are paid off. But I still read stories to her every night because it's our mother-daughter bonding moment that I still can't give up.  Mommies, care to share other tips on how to teach kids to read? 

In my next entry, I will be sharing how I taught my kindergartner addition and subtraction.