Teach Your Child to Read Today!
By: Review Doctor
Tags: Kids, Teaching, Read, Baby Read, Teach

( Note: The following article may contain affiliate links to offers. If you purchase any of the offers I may receive a commission )

Reading is one of the most important skills one must master to succeed in life. It helps your child succeed in school, helps them build self-confidence, and helps to motivate your child. Being able to read will help your child learn more about the world, understand directions on signs and warnings on labels, allow them to discover reading as an entertainment, and help them gather information.

Learning to read is very different from learning to speak, and it does not happen all at once. There is a steady progression in the development of reading ability over time. The best time for children to start learning to read is at a young age — even before they enter pre-school. Once a child is able to speak, they can begin developing basic reading skills. Very young children have a natural curiosity to learn about everything. They are naturally intrigued by the printed texts they see, and are eager to learn about the sounds made by those letters. You will likely notice that your young child likes to look at books and thoroughly enjoys being read to. They will even pretend to behave like a reader by holding books and pretend to read them.

At what age can you start teaching a child to read? When they’re babies? At 2 years old, 3, 4, or 5 years old, or wait until they’re in school?

If you delay your child’s reading skill development until he or she enters school, you are putting your child at risk…

Give Your Child the Most Important Skill in Life — Reading.

Did you know that 67% of all Grade 4 students cannot read at a proficient level! According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, of those 67%, 33% read at just the BASIC level, and 34% CANNOT even achieve reading abilities of the lowest basic level!

There is a super simple and extremely effective system that will even teach 2 and 3 year old children to read.

This is a unique reading program developed by two amazing parents and reading teachers, Jim and Elena, who successfully taught their four children to read before turning 3 years old. The reading system they developed is so effective that by the time their daughter was just 4 years 2 months old, she was already reading at a grade 3 level. They have videos to prove it.

Their reading system is called Children Learning Reading, and it is nothing like the infomercials you see on TV, showing babies appearing to read, but who have only learned to memorize a few word shapes. This is a program that will teach your child to effectively decode and read phonetically. It will give your child a big head start, and allow you to teach your child to read and help your child develop reading skills years ahead of similar aged children.

This is not a quick fix solution where you put your child in front of the TV or computer for hours and hope that your child learns to “read”… somehow…

This is a reading program that requires you, the parent, to be involved. But the results are absolutely amazing. Thousands of parents have used the Children Learning Reading program to successfully teach their children to read.

All it takes is 10 to 15 minutes a day.

>>> Click here to get started right now. <<<

Reading Makes Your Child Smarter

Study Shows That Reading Makes Children Smarter

Teach Your Child to Read and Help Your Child Become Smarter

Reading is known to have numerous benefits. It increases your world knowledge, enhances your vocabulary, and works to improve your reading comprehension abilities.

But did you know that reading can actually make you smarter?

In fact, reading not only can make a child smarter, the very act of reading can even help to compensate for modest levels of cognitive ability in children by building their vocabulary and general knowledge! This is a finding reported by researchers Cunningham and Stanovich in a report titled “What Reading Does For the Mind”.

The simple fact here is that reading can make your child smarter, and that learning to read early on is directly linked to later success in life.

1) Did you know that your child’s vocabulary at 3 years old predicts his or her grade one reading success?

2) Did you know that vocabulary and reading ability in first grade strongly predicts grade 11 outcomes?

3) Did you know that your child’s reading skill in grade 3 directly influences high school graduation? Studies have found that children who cannot read proficiently by grade 3 are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than proficient readers!

How to Teach a 2 or 3 Year Old to Read.

But how do you teach a young child to read, and isn’t that the job of the school and teachers?

You can’t be more wrong…

With the right tools, knowledge, and techniques, teaching young children to read can be a simple and effective process. I’d like to introduce you to a fantastic reading program called Children Learning Reading, a super effective method for teaching children to read — even children as young as just 2 or 3 years old.

The creators of this program have used it to teach their four children to read before age 3, and by reading, I mean real, phonetic reading.

I can understand if you find that hard to believe… In fact, I had a difficult time believing it myself as well… that is, until I saw the videos they posted documenting the reading progress of the their children — not to mention all the videos other parents have sent in showcasing their children’s reading progress after using the Children Learning Program. After learning more about their methods and techniques, it became clear how it’s possible to teach young children to read effectively.

It is truly within your ability to teach your child to read in a relatively short period of time spending just 10 to 15 minutes each day.

1. Vocabulary Development and Instruction: A Prerequisite for School Learning

Andrew Biemiller, University of Toronto

2. Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later.

Cunningham AE, Stanovich KE.

3. Double Jeopardy How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation

Donald J. Hernandez, Hunter College and the Graduate Center,

The Simplest and Most Effective Method to Teach Children to Read

Discover a Surefire Method to Teach Your Child to Read

There are many different methods and opinions on how to teach a child to read — while all are well-intentioned, some methods could actually lead to reading difficulties in children. Learning to read is a critical step towards future academic success and later on success in life. If you cannot read, you cannot succeed. There is an amazingly simple method — actually, a combination of two methods — that can teach anyone to read, even children as young as 2 and 3 years old.

The combination of these two methods has been used in the Children Learning Reading program to successfully teach thousands of young children to read. So what are these methods?

It is the combination of synthetic phonics and phonemic awareness.

Most have probably heard of phonics, but phonemic awareness is a concept less well known and ?it’s not something you hear about often. Certainly, phonics is absolutely necessary to develop fluent reading skills; however, there are different types of phonics including embedded, analogy, analytical, and synthetic phonics. While using some type of phonics is better than not including any phonics instructions at all, you will achieve FAR BETTER results by employing synthetic phonics, which is by far the most easy and effective method for teaching reading. Multiple studies support this.

In a 7 year study conducted by the Scottish Education Department, 300 students were taught using either analytic phonics or synthetic phonics. The results found that the synthetic phonics group were reading 7 months ahead and spelling 8 to 9 months ahead of the other phonics groups. At the end of the 7 year study, the children were reading 3.5 years ahead of their chronological age.

Very impressive!

Through their amazing reading program, the creators (Jim & Elena — parents of 4 children and reading teachers) have taught all of their children to read phonetically by 3 years old and have helped thousands of parents to successfully teach their children to read as well! Some are small 2 or 3 year old toddlers, others are young 4 or 5 year old preschoolers, and still others at ages 6, 7, 8 or even older.

>> Click here to watch amazing videos of young children reading, and see the amazing results so many parents are achieving with their children.<<<

The Children Learning Reading program works so well that many children will achieve reading ages far ahead of their chronological age.

Take Jim & Elena’s children as an example: their oldest child, Raine, was reading phonetically at 2 years 11 months old, and by the time she entered kindergarten at 5 years old, she was reading at a grade 5 level with a reading age of 11.9 years — almost 7 years ahead of her chronological age. Their second child, Ethan, learned to read phonetically by 2 years 9 months, and at age 3, he was reading at a grade 2 level with a reading age of 7.2 years — progressing at a similarly quick pace as his older sister. Find that hard to believe? You can watch the videos posted here.

There are many different phonics programs out there, but rarely do you ever hear a mention of phonemic awareness (PA), and PA is absolutely an equally critical component to developing reading skills in children. What makes the Children Learning Reading program so unique and amazingly effective at teaching young children is that it seamlessly combines the teaching of synthetic phonics along with phonemic awareness to enable children to develop superb reading skills.

Above and beyond simply teaching children to read and decode effectively, this approach of combining synthetic phonics and PA instructions works to help children achieve reading ages far above their chronological ages — just as the Scottish study had demonstrated with synthetic phonics. The amazing effects of this type of learning increases dramatically with time and age. Even more noteworthy is that this approach to learning reading immensely enhances a child’s spelling abilities as well! Indeed, in a report published by the National Reading Panel (NRP), the NRP had found that learning through synthetic phonics and phonemic awareness instructions greatly enhances a young child’s ability to spell.

Whether you have a toddler, a pre-schooler, a kindergartener, or an early grade school child, the Children Learning Reading program will enable you to effectively teach your child to decode and read phonetically. The lessons are taught in a logical and sequential order of learning, and the step-by-step lessons make it super easy for you to teach your child and enable your child to become a fast and fluent reader.

>>>>Click here to learn more about the Children Learning Reading program and teach your child to read today<<<

How a 3 Year and 5 Year Old Learned to Read in 4 Months

Case Study: Teaching a 3 and a 5 Year Old to Read in Just 4 Months

How a 5 Year Old Achieved a 2nd Grade Reading Level in 4 Months

I’d like to share with you an interesting case study of how 2 sisters (a 3 year old and a 5 year old) learned to read in just 4 months — both learned to read using the Children Learning Reading program. They attended the summer reading camp operated by the program’s creator, Jim Yang.

Jim has been teaching kids — and teaching parents how to teach their kids — to read for quite some time. During the summer months, he runs a reading camp teaching many children to read. most of the the children he teaches are 4 to 7 years old, with the occasional 3 year old or 8 year olds who are having reading difficulties.

To complete both stages of the reading camp, it typically takes about 4 months — attending 3 times a week and each session is 1 hour long.

This case study is about 2 little girls (sisters) that attended the reading camp. When they started (June), the older sister P. S. was 5 years 4 months, and the younger sister A. S. was just 2 years 11 months old. Probably most reading teachers would not even consider working with a 2 year old — since when can a 2 year old learn to read!?!

Well, no problem for Jim, as he had taught all of his own children to read by age 3. So when their mom asked if she could bring her almost 3 year old, Jim said: “sure, why not? I’ll have both of them reading for you in a few months.” Certainly, she had a healthy degree of skepticism.

So by the end of 4 months, after completing the Children Learning Reading program, her older daughter was reading at a grade 2 level (reading age 7.3 years), and her younger daughter was reading at a grade 1 level (reading age 6.8 years). I can’t embed videos in emails, so please head over to Jim’s website, scroll down, and watch the short video posted under “Success Story #3”. There, you see just how well her older daughter was reading by the end of 4 months, plus follow-up videos several months and one year later showing their amazing progress.

The Initial Reading Assessment

At the start of the reading camp, there is a quick reading assessment. The younger girl A. S. did not need an assessment as being just 2 year 11 months old, she did not know any letters or sounds, yet. The older sister P. S. knew most of the alphabet letter names and “sounds”, but she was pronouncing some of the sounds incorrectly.

No surprises there, as almost every single child that attends the reading camp are taught many phonemes incorrectly (!!), either at preschool or in Kindergarten. Such is the state of our education system.

Learning to Read

Being 3 years apart, there’s a big difference in how quickly the older sister will learn compared to her younger sister. They start off with the Children Learning Reading program as usual, except after a few lessons, adjustments were made to accommodate for the different learning paces of the older sister and the younger sister.

This system of teaching reading is a unique combination of synthetic phonics with phonemic awareness that produces amazing results in children of all ages. Obviously, one of the initial goals was to REALLY correct the incorrect sounds the older sister had learned in pre-school! She was starting kindergarten in September. After just the first week, the older sister P. S. caught on and was doing great with phonemic awareness activities such as blending and segmenting. Little A. S., being a lot younger, took about 2.5 weeks before she started catching on.

The Results

With such a logical and sequential order of learning, the results are always phenomenal, and parents are almost always flabbergasted at what can be accomplished in just 3 to 4 months.

By week 4, the older P. S. was already reading simple, short, decodable sentences, and the younger A. S. (just turned 3 now) is able to phonetically read many many words. After 2 months, every time they came to their lessons, their mom (always with a big smile) was always telling stories about how the 2 of them are reading everywhere they go!

After 3 months — at about 3/4 way through completing the reading program — the older sister P. S. was already reading simple, short stories independently. Little A. S. (now 3) could also read (phonetically) an amazing amount of words, sentences, and even some very simple short stories. Keep in mind she just turned 3. At 3 months is when their reading abilities really took off, and their mom just could not believe the type of results she was seeing in her children — she kept on saying that she did not think this was even remotely possible.

Indeed, it is. You just have to have the right techniques and methods when it comes to teaching reading, and one of Jim’s favorite comments he received about his teaching methods is that:

“It totally de-mystifies reading.”

The girls completed the reading camp by end of September, and their mom said it was unbelievable how far ahead both of her daughters were compared to other kids. In the video (see success story #3), you can see just how well P. S. was reading by the end of 4 months.

Teaching reading is something that Jim does extremely well. While you and your child may not live in the same city (or even country) as him to attend his classes, his Children Learning Reading program is available for parents to purchase online. Thousands of parents have used his methods to successfully teach their children to read with amazing results.

>> Click here to watch a short video presentation to learn more about the Children Learning Reading program, and see how you can effectively teach your child to read.

Here’s what their mom had to say about their experience:

My children loved the program and so did I. I am extremely pleased with the results. My children started the program at 2 years 11 months and 5 years 4 months with Jim, and neither child was reading before the program. My children loved the program, and Jim is an excellent teacher. After 4 months, my 3 year old is reading at a grade 1 level, and my 5 year old is at a grade 2–3 level. I never expected such amazing results. Jim’s program takes the mystery out of teaching children how to read. It is so well organized that any child can learn to read with it. The outcome exceeded my expectations. At the start of the program, I thought my 3 year old might learn some letters and my 5 year old would learn some words, but after completing the program in 4 months, my 3 year old could read long sentences and simple short stories, and my 5 year old could read level 2 books on her own. Thanks, Parminder S.

3 Tips to Teach Your child How to Read

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Learning to read at a young age is important for the development of the child. It helps them develop a better understand of their surroundings, allows them to gather information from printed materials, and provides them with a wonderful source of entertainment when they read stories and rhymes. Children develop at different rates, and some children will develop reading skills quicker than other children; however, what’s important is that as the parent, you are keenly aware of your child’s maturity and reading level to provide them with appropriate books and activities to help them improve.

As parents, you are the most important teacher for your children. You will introduce your child to books and reading. Below we have some tips to help you teach your child to read.

Teach Your Child How to Read Tip #1

Teach your child alphabet letters and sounds at the same time. Studies have shown that children learn best when they are taught the letter names and letter sounds at the same time. In one study, 58 preschool children were randomly assigned to receive instructions in letter names and sounds, letter sound only, or numbers (control group). The results of this study are consistent with past research results in that it found children receiving letter name and sound instruction were most likely to learn the sounds of letters whose names included cues to their sounds. [1]

When teaching your child the letter sounds, have them slowly trace the letter, while saying the sound of the letter at the same time. For example, if you were teaching your child the letter “A”, you would say:

“The letter A makes the /A/ (ah) sound.”

Then have your child say the /A/ sound while tracing the letter with his or her index finger.

Teaching a Child How to Read Tip #2

When teaching your child to read, always emphasize with them that the proper reading order should be from left to right, and top to bottom. To adults, this may seem so basic that anyone should know it. However, our children are not born with the knowledge that printed text should be read from left to right and top to bottom, and this is why you’ll sometimes see children reading from right to left instead — because they were never explicitly taught to read from left to right. When teaching your child how to read, always emphasize this point with them.

Teach Your Child How to Read Tip #3

Teach final consonant blends first. Teaching words such “at” and “and” can lead your child directly to learning words that rhyme with these. For example, for “at”, you can have:

Lat

Pat

Mat

Cat

Sat

Bat

Spat

Chat

For “and”, you can have these rhyming words:

Sand

Band

Land

Hand

Stand

Bland

Brand

Grand

and so on…

You can start teaching blends once your child has learned the sounds of some consonants and short vowel sounds. You don’t need to wait until your child has mastered the sounds of all the letters before teaching blends.

Learning to read is a long process, but it doesn’t have to be a difficult process. Broken down into intuitive and logical steps, a child as young as two years old can learn to read, and older children can accomplish even more.

>> Click here to for a simple, step-by-step program that can help your child learn to read, and watch a video of a 2 year old child reading

Best Way to Teach Kids to Read

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

What’s the best way to teach children to read? According to the National Reading Panel, “teaching children to manipulate phonemes in words was highly effective under a variety of teaching conditions with a variety of learners across a range of grade and age levels and that teaching phonemic awareness to children significantly improves their reading more than instruction that lacks any attention to Phonemic Awareness.” [1] This is a statement made by the National Reading Panel (NRP) in their report titled “TEACHING CHILDREN TO READ: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction.”

Phonemic Awareness instruction was selected for review by the NRP in their report because studies have identified phonemic awareness and letter knowledge as two of the best predictors of how well children will learn to read in their first 2 years of entering school. There is strong Scientific evidence to suggest that phonemic awareness instructions are an important part in helping children develop reading skills.

One study discussed the presence of phonemic awareness in Austrian children aged 6 to 7 that were unable to read when first entering school. This study found that many children had not one correct response in their test of a simple vowel substitution task. However, a few children who exhibited high phonemic awareness scored close to perfect on this same task. The study further stated that “there was a specific predictive relationship between initial phonemic awareness differences and success in learning to read and to spell.” Even more importantly, the study indicated that it was phonemic awareness abilities, and not IQ, that predicted the accuracy of reading and spelling at the end of grade one. Children with high phonemic awareness at the beginning of grade one had high reading and spelling achievements at the end of grade one, compared to some children with low phonemic awareness who had difficulties learning to read and spell. [2]

In the National Reading Panel report, they also determined that the beneficial effects of phonemic awareness on reading lasts well beyond the period of training. While phonemic awareness instructions are proven to significantly help children learn reading, it is not a complete reading program. What it does, is provide children with a foundational knowledge base of the alphabet language. The NRP analysis also showed that phonics instructions produces significant benefits for students from kindergarten through grade 6, and is also helpful for children with learning to read difficulties.

Children who are taught with phonics and phonemic awareness instructions are consistently able to decode, read, and spell, and even demonstrated significant improvement in their ability to comprehend text. Even older children who receive these similar teachings improved their ability to decode and spell. The NRP made a key statement saying that “conventional wisdom has suggested that kindergarten students might not be ready for phonics instruction, this assumption was not supported by the data. The effects of systematic early phonics instruction were significant and substantial in kindergarten and the 1st grade, indicating that systematic phonics programs should be implemented at those age and grade levels.”

However, I would like to further expand on that by saying that children as young as two years old can learn to read through phonics and phonemic awareness instructions. If a young child can speak, then they should be able to learn to read, even if they are as young as two years old. In fact, I have proven this with my own children. We started teaching our daughter at 2 years and 8months, and she was very capable at reading by the time she was just 2 years and 11 months old.

>> Click here to learn more about the simple, step-by-step phonics and phonemic awareness program we used to teach her to read.

How to Help Your Child Learn to Read

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

The ability to read is vital for success. It helps your child succeed in school, helps them build self-confidence, and helps to motivate your child. Being able to read will help your child learn more about the world, understand directions on signs and posters, allow them to find reading as an entertainment, and help them gather information.

Learning to read is very different from learning to speak, and it does not happen all at once. There is a steady progression in the development of reading ability over time. The best time for children to start learning to read is at a very young age — even before they enter pre-school. Once a child is able to speak, they can begin developing basic reading skills. Very young children have a natural curiosity to learn about everything, and they are naturally intrigued by the printed texts they see, and are eager to learn about the sounds made by those letters. You will likely notice that your young child likes to look at books and thoroughly enjoys being read to. They will even pretend to behave like a reader by holding books and pretend to read them.

As parents, you’re the most important first step in your children’s journey into the wonderful world of reading. It is up to you to create the most supportive environment that turns your child on to reading — such as reading aloud to them often during the day and before bedtime, and placing age appropriate books for children around the house, so that the child will have access to plenty of books. Reading often to your child will help develop their interest in books and stories, and soon they will want to read stories on their own.

With the help of parents, children can learn how to read. Make reading into a family activity, and spend time playing words games and reading story books. This will not only help you child learn to read, but it’ll also help them build a rich vocabulary, teach them language patterns, and help them fall in love with books and reading.

Below are some tips to help you teach your child to read.

Talk to your child — before a child can learn to read, he or she must first learn to speak. Talk to your child about everything and anything — whatever interests them. Tell them stories, ask your child lots of questions, play rhyme games, and sing songs with them.

Read to your child consistently everyday — we’re all creatures of habit, and enjoy having a daily routine. Set time aside each day to read to your child. Read to your child every night. Make this their “cool down” period before they go to sleep. This not only helps your child develop an interest in books and reading, it also help the parent bond with the child, and develop a healthy relationship.

Help your child develop reading comprehension — typically, parents will take the time to read for their children; however, many parents do not put much emphasis or thought on whether their children understands what they’ve just been read to. Instead, occasionally, make an effort to question your child on what you’ve just read. For example, you read to your child:

“Jack and Jill went up the hill…”

You pause briefly and ask your child:

“So where did Jack and Jill go?” Or alternatively, “Who went up the hill?”

Young children may not catch on right away initially, and it may take a little practice, but they’ll eventually catch on and begin to develop a deeper understanding of what they are reading. This is a very important step in helping your child develop reading comprehension. Of course, don’t do this every single time you read, or your child will quickly get bored and lose interest. Do it at random times, and do not over do it.

Help your child to read with a wide variety of books and keep reading fun — There is no shortage of children books, and you should always have a wide variety of children books, stories, and rhymes available. Reading is a lot of fun, for both parents and children. Read to your child using drama and excitement, and use different voices. Give your child the option of choosing what book they want you to read, instead of picking the book you want to read to your child.

When reading to your child, read slowly, and point to the words that you are reading to help the child make a connection between the word your are saying and the word you are reading. Always remember that reading should be a fun and enjoyable activity for your children, and it should never feel like a “chore” for them.

>> Click here to help your child learn to read

Teaching Phonics to Children

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Phonics is a necessary part of any good method of teaching children to read. Teaching Children phonics and helping them develop phonemic awareness is the key to mastering words, which is the first key step toward successful reading. Children need to develop a knowledge of the letters, the sounds represented by the letters, and the connection between sounds created by combining the letters where words are formed. This is an essential part of mastering reading, and enabling children to become independent readers. By learning phonics and phonemic awareness, children gain the ability to pronounce new words, develop clear articulation, improve spelling, and develop self confidence.

When it comes to teaching your children to read, it must include three basic principles:

1) Reading for the child, whether it’s a word, sentence, or story, must appeal to your child’s interests.

2) Never pressure or force your child into reading, turning it into a negative “event” in their life. It should be a fun, enjoyable, and rewarding experience. This will take ample amounts of patience on the part of the parents, and some creativity.

3) Teaching your child to read must begin with the mastery of the phonemes — the individual sounds which makeup the words.

The basic process of teaching phonics and phonemic awareness to children includes teaching them the letters and letter sounds; then you teach the child to combine (or blend) various letter sounds together to form words; which is then followed by reading sentences and simple stories. This is a logical progression for children to learn reading, where they develop accuracy in decoding words and pronouncing words. This method of teaching also helps the child to spell correctly. Gradually, the different elements of phonics are combined to produce new words, and leads to the discovery of new words by the child using this process which becomes an “automatic reflex”.

Teaching phonics to children should take 10 to 15 minutes each day, and these “lessons” should take place in several small sessions each day — such as 4 or 5 session lasting 3 to 5 minutes each. For older pre-school children, lessons can be slightly longer; however, several minutes each session is all that’s needed.

One way to start teaching phonics to children with with ear training — by helping them develop the understanding that words are made up of smaller units of sounds, or known as phonemes, and when you combine these sounds, a word is formed. You can start this with very short sessions, as already mentioned. A few minutes a day is all that you need. The key, however, is consistency and patience.

During these short sessions, sound out words slowly and distinctly. You can do this without even making the child aware that you are trying to teach them. Simply take words from your everyday speaking to your child and include oral blending sounds into your sentences. For example, if you wanted to ask your child to drink his milk, you could say: “Joe, d-r-i-n-k your m-ilk.” The words drink and milk are sounded out slowly and distinctly. The level of sound separation can be set by you to increase or lower the difficulty. Thus, if Joe has a tough time figuring out that d-r-i-n-k means drink, you can lower the difficulty by blending the word as dr-ink instead.

Alternatively, you could simply pick different words and play blending sounds games with your child. You simply say the sounds of the word slowly, and ask the child try to guess what you are saying.

This concept of individual sounds forming words may take some time for your child to grasp. Some children will pick it up quickly, while other children may take longer, but one thing that’s certain is that if you keep it up, your child will catch on. Below are some sample words which you can use to play blending sounds activities with your child.

J-u-m-p J-ump

R-u-n R-un

S-i-t S-it

S-t-a-n-d St-and

M-i-l-k M-ilk

S-t-o-p St-op

The first word is more segmented than the second word, and will be more difficult to sound out. Please note that hyphens are used to indicate the letter sounds instead of slashes.

ie: J-u-m-p /J/ /u/ /m/ /p/

This is done to make things easier to read; however, when you read it, you should not read the names of the letters, but instead say the sounds of the letters. This type of ear training for phonics and phonemic awareness should continue throughout the teaching process, even well after your child have grasped this concept. It can be applied to words with increasing difficulty. Again, please always keep in mind that not all children can readily blend the sounds to hear the word, so you must be patient, and drill this for days, weeks, or even months if needed. Consistency and frequency is the key to success here, and not sporadic binge sessions.

If you would like to learn about a simple step-by-step program designed to easily teach your children how to read, please click here.

Phonemic Awareness Research

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds which make up words. In the past few decades, large amounts of research have improved our understanding of phonemic awareness and its importance in helping children learn to read. There are hundreds of research studies conducted on all aspects of phonemic awareness, and how it affects and benefits reading and spelling abilities of young children. The National Reading Panel of the US have stated that phonemic awareness improves children’s reading and reading comprehension, and that it also helps children to learn to spell. Based on the research and reviews done by the National Reading Panel, they have concluded that teaching phonics and phonemic awareness produces better reading results than whole language programs.

When teaching phonemic awareness, children are taught the smallest units of sound, or phonemes. During the teaching process, children are taught to focus on the phonemes, and learn to manipulate the phonemes in words. Studies have identified phonemic awareness and letter knowledge as the two best school-entry predictors of how well children will learn to read during the first 2 years of instruction. In a review of phonemic awareness research, the National Reading Panel (NRP) identified 1,962 citations, and the results of their meta-analysis were impressive as stated in the NRP publication:

Overall, the findings showed that teaching children to manipulate phonemes in words was highly effective under a variety of teaching conditions with a variety of learners across a range of grade and age levels and that teaching phonemic awareness to children significantly improves their reading more than instruction that lacks any attention to phonemic awareness (PA). Specifically, the results of the experimental studies led the Panel to conclude that PA training was the cause of improvement in students’ phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling following training. The findings were replicated repeatedly across multiple experiments and thus provide converging evidence for causal claims. [1]

As can be clearly seen, teaching children phonemic awareness early on significantly improves their reading and spelling abilities. Furthermore, the NRP research stated that these beneficial effects of phonemic awareness teaching goes well beyond the end of training period. The NRP phonemic awareness research also found that the most effective teaching method was to systematically teach children to manipulate phonemes with letters, and teaching children in small groups.

Phonemic awareness (PA) teaching provides children with an essential foundation of the alphabet system, and a foundation in reading and spelling. The NRP has stated that PA instructions is a necessary instructional component within a complete reading program.

Below are two other studies done on phonemic awareness, and its effects on reading abilities. In a study involving children aged 6 to 7 years old, researchers found that the few readers at the beginning of grade one exhibited high phonemic awareness scored at least close to perfect in the vowel substitution task, compared to none in children of the same age group who could not read when they entered school. The research also stated that phonemic awareness differences before instruction predicted the accuracy of alphabetic reading and spelling at the end of grade one independent from IQ. Children with high phonemic awareness at the start of grade one had high reading and spelling achievements at the end of grade one; however, some of the children with low phonemic awareness had difficulties learning to read and spell. The study suggested that phonemic awareness is the critical variable for the progress in learning to read. [2]

Another study looked at phonemic awareness and emergent literacy skills of 42 children with an average age of 5 years and 7 months. The researchers indicated that relations between phonemic awareness and spelling skills are bidirectional where phonemic awareness improved spelling skills, and spelling influenced the growth in phonemic skills. [3]

It is clear that with the conclusions made by the National Reading Panel and other research studies on the benefits of phonemic awareness, children should be taught PA at a young age before entering school. This helps them build a strong foundation for learning to read and spell.

>> Help your child develop phonemic awareness and teach your child to read today

Teaching Letter Names and Sounds

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

So, you want to teach your child to read, but before a child can learn to read, he or she must first learn at least some of the letters in the alphabet, their names, and the sounds that they represent. To be able to read, a child must be able to recognize the letters, know the sound of the letters, and be able to recognize the letters quickly and say the sound without hesitation. There is plenty of discussion and disagreement on whether it’s better to teach children using whole language programs or using methods which incorporate phonics and phonemic awareness instructions. I think the debate on this is settled when the National Reading Panel stated from their findings of reviewing over 1,900 studies that phonics and phonemic awareness produces superior reading results than whole language programs.

There is also some debate on whether to teach your child only letter names, or only the sounds which the letters represent. However, studies have also settled this debate by finding that teaching a child alphabet names and sounds together produces the best results. In fact, studies have found that there is little value in teaching preschoolers letter forms or letter sounds separately. This was indicated by an Australian study involving 76 preschool children. The children received 6 weeks of training in either letter awareness, phonemic awareness, or control tasks, and then received another 6 weeks of training in either letter-sound correspondence or control tasks. The study found that training in either phoneme or letter awareness assisted with learning of letter-sound correspondences, and that the phonemically trained children group had an advantage on recognition tasks. The study found that there is little value in training in letter form or letter sounds separately. [1]

As you can see, there is basically no point in only teaching either the names of the alphabet letters, or the sounds the letters make. A child must learn the name and the sound of the alphabet letter. When teaching your child the alphabet, instead of simply teaching them the name of the alphabet such as “this is the letter A”, teach them like so:

“This is the letter A, and the letter A makes the /A/ sound.” (note: the /A/ denote the sound “A” makes, and not its name). Similarly, you can teach your child the other alphabet letters in this way including both name and sound of the letter. This is the way I teach my children the alphabet letters. Other studies have also determined that teaching the letter names and sounds together helped children learn.

58 preschool children were randomly assigned to receive instructions in letter names and sounds, letter sound only, or numbers (control group). The results of this study are consistent with past research results in that it found children receiving letter name and sound instruction were most likely to learn the sounds of letters whose names included cues to their sounds. [2]

To be able to effectively teach your children the sounds of letters, you must first master the proper pronunciation of the letters yourself. It is critical for you as a parent to be able to first say the sounds of the letters correctly before teaching your children, and this is much tougher than it may seem.

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Teaching a Child to Read at an Early Age

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Did you know that 38% of grade four students have reading abilities below the lowest basic level as determined by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)? The NAEP is the only ongoing survey of what students known and tracks their performance in various academic subjects for the United States. In their report, the NAEP found that 38% of grade four students had reading achievement below basic levels, with a basic level reading score being 208.

To put things in perspective, the US reading scale has an upper limit score of 500, with average reading scores for grade 4 (217), grade 8 (264), and grade 12 (291). The grade 4 reading achievement levels are categorized by the NAEP as Advanced (268 score), Proficient (238 score), and Basic (208 score), and the basic reading achievement level is defined as follows by the NAEP:

Fourth-grade students performing at the Basic level should demonstrate an understanding of the overall meaning of what they read. When reading text appropriate for fourth graders, they should be able to make relatively obvious connections between the text and their own experiences and extend the ideas in the text by making simple inferences. [1]

Unfortunately, over a third of all grade four students read at levels even below basic. Is your child having reading difficulties? Research on Phonemic Awareness have found that early reading helps improves a child’s reading and spelling abilities. In fact, the National Reading Panel has concluded based on their massive review of over 1,900 studies that teaching phonics and phonemic awareness produces better reading results than whole language programs.

There are numerous documented benefits and advantages of teaching children to read early on, and teaching them to reading using phonics and phonemic awareness instructions. It is clear that early language and reading ability development passes great benefits to the child as they progress through school at all grades, and that early language and reading problems can lead to learning problems later on in school. For example, a Swedish study found that children with a history of reading problems at school entry scores significantly below average on reading in grade 4. As well, children that shows very low interest in books and story reading before age 5 also scored similarly low on sentence reading in grade 4. [2] This is just one of many studies which have similar findings, and this makes it an imperative for parents to begin exposing their children to books and reading at an early age.

So how early?

Good question!

There’s no set guideline on when you should start teaching your children to read; however, you can start cultivating your child’s love for books and reading as soon as they’re born. Obviously, very young babies would not even know what books are, however, talking to your child and reading to your child will help them develop a keen liking for books and stories. As your child grows and gets older, avoid TV-sitting them, because as they develop a dependency on television as their main source of entertainment, it becomes very difficult to dislodge that need for TV entertainment, and get them to enjoy reading books. Instead, keep age appropriate books all around the house, and read to them often. You’ll find that they’ll start picking up books and pretend to read themselves, although at very early ages, they still cannot read.

People typically think that kindergarten or grade one would be an appropriate time for their children to start reading; however, this is not the best approach as studies have repeatedly found that children with good phonemic awareness before entering kindergarten continues to outperform, and achieve exceptional reading and spelling abilities as they progress through school. On the other hand, children who enter school with reading difficulties may continue to have reading and spelling difficulties.

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Advantages of Teaching Children Reading Early

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Before a child learns to read, he or she must first learn the spoken language, and this is one of the first instances where family members such as dad, mom, older siblings, and grandparents play an important role in “teaching” the child the spoken English language. Whether young children realize it or not, they gain very early exposure to the alphabet when parents sing the alphabet song to them. They begin to develop language skills by being read to and spoken to. One of the keys to teaching children reading early on is by exposing them to alphabet letters, books, and reading to them often.

Reading nursery rhymes and children’s books are an important part of getting children to understand printed text. Talk to your children, and talk to them often, whether they understand or not is not important when they’re just babies. The more you talk and interact with your little ones, the better they will develop. The key is exposure, and repeated exposure. Once your child learns to speak, you can begin teaching them reading at home.

I often hear parents say that they don’t want to “push” their child too hard. How can teaching your child to read at a young age be considered “pushing” them too hard? If you as a parent already have the mentality that reading is a chore, and teaching them to read is pushing “too hard”, you certainly can’t expect your children to be excited about learning reading. On the contrary, learning to read offers a young child an opportunity for a lifetime to learn, discover, and enjoy the wonders of reading. Parents (including myself) will often underestimate the abilities and learning capabilities of young children. When we first began our teaching reading program with our first child when she was 2 years and 8 months, little did we expect that in just a few short weeks, she would be reading not just words, but sentences and story books. After about 3 months, by the time she was 2 years 11 months old, our daughter could read “Step in to Reading — step 2 (pre-school to grade 1 level)” books with some guidance. The benefits of learning to read were apparent — improved speech clarity, and better reading ability and reading comprehension.

There are no shortage of studies which find many benefits in teaching children reading at an early age. For example, one study administered a Stanford achievement test at the start of kindergarten and then again at the end of grade one found that early language based skills were highly associated with later academic performance in school aged children. [1] Similar studies also found that a high level of letter knowledge in kindergarten can reliably predict better later literacy skills.[2] Having a home environment that’s conducive to literacy growth is critical in a child’s development, and directly affects a child’s language and literacy development. Studies have found that responsiveness and support of the home environment is the strongest predictor of children’s language and early literacy skills. [3] My point here is help make parents aware that children who enter kindergarten with highly developed early reading skills will achieve greater success with systematic reading education. [4]

It’s never too late to start home lessons and programs to teach your children to read. Regardless how old your child is, starting a reading program at a young age will have ample benefits. Start with lots of talking, singing, and reading to your child right from birth, and once your child is able to speak, you can start a simple reading program.

Begin with teaching your child some basic letters and their sounds, and even as soon your child learn just a few letters and their sounds, you can begin teaching them simple blends using the letter knowledge that they have acquired. Work on ear training with your child on oral blending and word segmentation. One of the keys to teaching children read is developing phonemic awareness. Studies have shown that phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of reading success in children.

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Teaching Children to Read and Write

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Most parents, at one point or another, frets over the education and the development of their children. Many concerned parents research and seek information on the topic of teaching children to read and write. I for one, am glad to see so many parents wanting to get an early start for their children in reading and writing, because studies have shown that developing these abilities early on before entering school provides numerous benefits and advantages later on as the child progresses through school.

More worrisome should be the fact that over one third, 38% to be exact, of all grade 4 students cannot even achieve a basic level of reading ability according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This is an alarming statistic. Will your child become one of the 38% who cannot reach basic reading achievement by grade 4? For most children, this poor ability to read can be easily prevented with early phonemic awareness teaching.

Reading must begin early in the life of a child, whether it is just an alphabet letter, a word, a sentence, a paragraph, or a story. Teaching children how to read must begin early on, and children should be exposed to books, stories, rhymes, and be read to on a daily basis. Children as young as 2 years old can learn to read if you teach them to read with the proper instructions. Please watch the video below of a 2 year 11 months old reading randomly constructed sentences.

As Lida Williams said, almost 100 years ago:

Phonics is not a method of teaching reading, but it is a necessary part of every good, modern method. It is the key to word mastery, and word mastery is one of the first essentials in learning to read. A knowledge of the sounds of letters, and of the effect of the position of the letter upon its sound, is an essential means of mastering the mechanics of reading, and of enabling children to become independent readers.

100 years later, this still holds true. There has been a great debate on what method of teaching is best to teach children how to read: whether phonics or the whole language method is better. The whole language learning to read method is more of a “word memorization” plan, where a young child is supposed to memorize the “shape” of the word, and say it.

It is important to distinguish the difference between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. Phonological awareness is very broad, and includes phonemic awareness as a sub category. Phonemic awareness is very narrow, and it is only focused on the phonemes, which are the individual sounds of letters. There are no shortage of studies which have repeatedly found and concluded that teaching phonemic awareness to young children produces exceptional reading and spelling abilities. You can read more about research on phonemic awareness here.

The whole language method simply expects a child to “read” when presented reading material, and by memorizing sight words. The phonics method is a bottom up approach where you teach children to read in a logical and sequential order. You first teach children the alphabet letters and the sounds they represent; then you teach children to combine (or blend) various letter sounds together to form words; which is then followed by reading sentences and simple stories. This is a logical progression for children learning to read, where they develop accuracy in decoding words and pronouncing words. This method of teaching also helps the child to spell correctly.

There’s no doubt that phonics and phonemic awareness instruction is the superior method to teach children how to read. We have successfully used phonemic awareness instructions to teach our children at age 2 to read words, sentences, paragraphs, and simple story books. If you would like to learn about our simple, step-by-step method to teach your children to read and write, please click below:

Teach your child to read today using our step-by-step, proven method for teaching young children to read

Developing Phonemic Awareness and Learning Reading

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

As more research brings to light the advantages of phonics and phonemic awareness instructions have over whole language teaching methods, more parents are becoming aware of teaching using phonics and phonemic awareness skills. Many parents today are concerned about the method that is being used to teach their children how to read, and rightfully so. The whole language method is more of a method of “word memorization”, where the child is taught to look at printed words as whole configurations, much like looking at Chinese characters.

Teaching phonemic awareness skills involves the break down of words into individual sounds (phonemes), and then joining the parts to form, or sound out the words. By contrast, whole language learning stresses the flow and meaning of the text, where “sounding out” words is not used, the words are decoded through its larger context, and word memorization plays a key role. What would you rather do, memorize hundreds or even thousands of words based on shapes, or learn a systematic way of reading?

English is not meant to be memorized as shapes and sight objects. It becomes very difficult to learn to read by memorizing and recognizing shapes. Phonics and teaching phonemic awareness skills requires you to memorize the letters and the sounds they represent, and with this method, children as young as two years old can learn to read successfully, and comprehend what they are reading. Try teaching a young child with the whole language learning method, see how successful he or she will be at memorizing shapes. Teaching by using phonics will routinely produce successful readers.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that phonics is clearly a superior method of teaching children how to read. In the USA, over 30 million adults (14%) are considered functionally illiterate, and are unable to perform simple everyday literacy activities. [1] This however, should not be surprising since over one third of all children cannot even achieve basic reading competency by the time they are in grade four. This is a finding from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Are these children failing at literacy because they are dumb? I I hardly think so, but perhaps it is a result of the poor reading instructions they receive.

It has been proven time and again, that teaching phonemic awareness skill produces superior reading and spelling abilities than whole language teaching methods. Thousands of studies have confirmed this, and the National Reading Panel has also made a clear statement about this.

While most teachers will probably say that they teach using some phonics, the truth is that many teachers are not knowledgeable in the basic concepts of the English language. No, I’m not making a random statement. In a recent study, the researchers stated: “many in-service teachers are not knowledgeable in the basic concepts of the English language”. Their study found that even though the teachers may be well versed in children’s literature, but they do not know how to address the basic building blocks of language and reading. In their survey of instructors conducted, the researchers found that the teachers performed poorly on the concepts relating to morphemes and phonemes. In another second study, over 80% of the interviewed instructors agreed that phonics is a desirable method to use for beginning reading instructions. [2]

Some argue that a child will acquire a knowledge of phonics on his or her own after learning to read using whole language methods. While this may be true for some children, it is hardly the case for the other children with reading difficulties. When a child is taught to read using a whole word approach, they develop a habit of looking at all the words by their whole configurations, and this prevents the child from seeing the phonetic structure of the words. Real readers who learned to read by learning phonemic awareness skills do not need clues or cues to help them recognize shapes — they develop an automatic ability to decode the letters and words.

Ultimately, it is up to the parents to decide the path for which to teach their children to read. They can either simply leave it up to the education system, and hope that their child does not end up being one of the 38% grade four students which do not develop even basic reading achievement, or they can take the initiative and make the decision to help their children develop phonemic awareness skills early on before even starting kindergarten. Research on phonemic awareness has shown time after time that phonemic awareness skills predicted reading and spelling success of children in school.

Don’t leave your children’s reading success up to chance.

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How to Teach Phonics and Reading

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Teaching children to read by teaching phonics activities is a lot like doing math, where you have to know what the numbers are, how to count, and you need to learn to add and subtract before learning to multiply and divide. Teaching phonics to children is no different where you follow a step by step approach by first teaching the child the alphabet letters and phonics sounds, and then teaching them the combination of different letters to create different words, and using words to form sentences. It is a very logical and sequential buildup of phonics knowledge and reading ability.

Before a child can learn to read, he or she must first learn the alphabet letters, and know the sounds represented by the letters. It’s usually easier to teach some consonants and short vowels first before moving on to more complicated things such as consonant digraphs (2 consonants formed to produce one sound, such as “ch” or “ph”) and long vowels. As you can see, teaching children to read by the phonics method helps them develop phonemic awareness, and it is also a very logical and straight forward approach.

Start off by teaching your child the phonics sounds. You can choose to teach your child in alphabetic order going from A to Z, or you can teach several commonly used consonant sounds and vowels, and go from there. For example, you may start teaching your child /a/, /c/, and /t/ (slashes denote sound of the letters). Once your child has learn to quickly recognize these letters and properly sound out their sounds, you can then teach them to blend /c/, /a/, /t/ to make the words “cat”, or “tac”, or “at”.

As you introduce more letters and phonics sounds in your lesson plans, you can generate more words, and slowly introduce short, simple sentences to your reading lessons. Depending on the age of your child, I would suggest keeping the phonics lessons relatively short — around 5 to 10 minutes. Sometimes, just 3 to 5 minutes for a short lesson is plenty, and you can easily teach these short phonics lessons 2 or 3 times each day for a total of 10 to 15 minutes. Young children tend to be forgetful, so repetition is very important.

You don’t want to make the lessons too long and boring, that the child begins to feel like doing a “chore” when learning to read. So keep it short, fun, and interesting. By keeping the phonics lessons short, you also avoid overwhelming the child with too much information, and always remember to make sure your child has mastered one lesson before moving on to new material. Confusion and uncertainty will only make their learning effort difficult and frustrating — so review often, move on to new material only after they’ve mastered the current lessons.

So when can you start teaching phonics sounds and lessons to children? Not everyone will agree with me on this, but I believe that if your child can speak, then your child can learn to read. Of course, every child is different and unique, and some children will be more receptive to learning reading than others. One thing for certain, is that the earlier a child learns to read, the better.

We have taught our 2 year old daughter to read through teaching phonics sounds and lessons, and helping her develop phonemic awareness. If you watched the video above, that is our daughter reading randomly created sentences. We simply started teaching phonics sounds to her by spending 5 to 10 minutes each day, spread between 2 to 3 separate lessons, and slowly introduced new letters and reading material.

If you would like to learn more about the simple, effective, step-by-step method of teaching phonics and phonemic awareness, please click below.

>> Teach your child to read today using our step-by-step, proven method for teaching young children to read

How to Teach Your Baby to Read

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Teaching your baby to read is becoming more and more high priority for parents now as it becomes clear that learning to read at a young age offers numerous advantages for the child once he or she begins school. Studies have consistently found that teaching a baby to read and helping children develop phonemic awareness well before entering school can significantly improve their development in reading and spelling. However, when it comes to teaching babies to read, there are two main teaching methods.

These two main methods of teaching a baby or child to read are the whole language method, and the phonics and phonemic awareness method (the phonetic approach), which should be the preferred teaching method in helping children learn to read. Some prefer the whole language method, while others use the phonics approach, and there are also educator that use a mix of different approaches. With the Look-say approach of whole language learning, a child begins with memorizing sight words, and then taught various strategies of figuring out the text from various clues.

The whole language method produces inaccurate and poor readers compared to students of the phonetic approach. Using the whole word approach, English is being taught as an ideographic language such as Chinese. One of the biggest arguments from whole-language advocates is that teaching a baby to read using phonics breaks up the words into letters and syllables, which have no actual meaning, yet they fail to acknowledge the fact that once the child is able to decode the word, they are able to actually READ that entire word, pronounce it, and understand its meaning. So in practicality, it’s a very weak argument. English is an alphabetic system, and unlike Chinese, it is not an ideograph like Chinese characters, and should not be taught using an ideographic approach.

I always say that if your baby can speak, then you can begin to teach your baby to read. I won’t mention any names here, but I think most parents are probably aware of one very popular “reading” program, which is a whole word approach. Using this method, your baby simply learns to memorize the words without actually reading the words. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that teaching your baby to read using the whole word approach is an effective method. In fact, there are large numbers of studies which have consistently stated that teaching children to reading using phonemic awareness is a highly effective method.

Teaching phonemic awareness to children significantly improves their reading more than instruction that lacks any attention to phonemic awareness. — statement made by the National Reading Panel [1]

I do think that the debate on the effectiveness of teaching a baby to read using either the whole language or phonics method is settled by the statements made by the National Reading Panel. They reviewed over 1,960 different studies to make their conclusions.

In fact, while my wife was pregnant with our first child, I began doing extensive research on the subject on how to teach my baby to read — after birth, of course. Like most parents I also came across the popular whole word teaching approach being heavily marketed. Seeing the infomercials got me quite excited actually, seeing the babies on TV “reading”. But after trying it out, it occurred to me that the our baby wasn’t actually “reading”, but actually “memorizing”, and I thought to myself, how are my children supposed to read newer, and more complicated words as they grow older without an appropriate method of decoding those words? This is where my long and extensive research into phonics and phonemic awareness began.

After many hours of research and learning as much as I could, I felt comfortable enough with our simple phonemic awareness teaching method, that my wife and I began giving brief 3 to 5 minute lessons to our daughter, aged 2 years and 8 months. Within just a few short weeks, her reading ability (and I mean actual reading ability, not memorization) was astounding, even for me as the parent who gave the reading instructions. Friends and family alike, were simply flabbergasted at what our daughter was capable of reading at just 2 years and 11 months. Please watch the video above, composed of clips of her reading randomly created sentences for reading fun.

I simply can’t imagine this kind of progress possible with the whole word approach — just think of the tens and hundreds of words a young child would have to memorize!

Our son is fast approaching the age where he will soon be able to speak, and we will be using the same simple step-by-step method to teach him to read. If you’d like to learn more about our simple, effective, step-by-step program, please signup for our newsletter below. We also send out new articles, updates, tips, and guides on teaching a baby to read.

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How to Teach Phonemic Awareness While Reading Bedtime Stories

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Helping young children develop phonemic awareness early on is one of the keys for children to develop exceptional reading and writing skills once they begin attending schools. Did you know that studies have indicated that phonemic awareness is the single best predictor of reading success for young children once they begin school? In fact, studies have found that phonemic awareness is far better than IQ at predicting the reading and spelling abilities of young children.

Most people know about phonics, and what it is; however, far fewer people know what phonemic awareness is. In short, phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and work with the phonemes. For example, /d/, /o/, and /g/, are the individual sounds of the word “dog”. Please note, the letters enclosed in the slashes denotes the sound of the letter, and not the name of the letter. Phonemes are the smallest units of individual sounds that form a word.

Phonemic awareness is not something you’re born with, and it is an ability that’s gained through repeated exposure to listening, speaking, and reading. As parents, there are many different strategies you can use to help your children develop phonemic awareness such as playing simple word segmentation or oral blending games.

Like most parents, we (my wife and I) read bedtime stories before we put our children to sleep, and one of the best strategies that we like to use to teach phonemic awareness to our children, is to mix in word segmenting and oral blending when we read bedtime stories for our kids. This is an exceptional method, because it doesn’t take any extra time or effort, since reading bedtime stories is something you already do. So, here’s how to go about it.

Let’s say that you’re reading a nursery rhyme “Jack and Jill”:

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown

And Jill came tumbling after.

Instead of reading each word straight through the rhyme, you can randomly mix in oral blending on various words in the rhyme. Please note: instead of using slashes “/” to denote phonemes, we’ll simply use hyphens to make it easier to read. So, let’s assume that your child is very young, perhaps 2, 3, or 4 years old, and you want to start helping them develop some phonemic awareness. You can read Jack and Jill like so:

J-ack and J-ill went up the h-ill

To fetch a p-ail of water.

J-ack fell down and broke his crown

And J-ill came tumbling after.

As you can see, when you read the rhyme, you simply make an effort to separate several of the first letters sounds from the words, such as /J/ from “ack”, and /J/ from “ill”. As your child begins to grasp the concept of individual sounds making up words, you can slowly increase the difficulty by breaking down each word further. For example:

Jack

J-ack

J-a-ck

Repeated exposure of this type of word segmenting and oral blending will slowly help your child develop a sense and an understanding that each word is made up of individual sounds — in other words, you are teaching phonemic awareness to your children during bedtime stories without them even knowing that they are being taught to!

>> Teach your child to read today using a step-by-step, proven method for teaching young children to read

Phonemic Awareness

By: ChildrenLearningReading.com

Phonemic Awareness is defined as the ability to identify, hear, and work with the smallest units of sound known as phonemes. It is NOT the same as phonological awareness, instead, it is a sub-category of phonological awareness. For example, phonemic awareness is narrow, and deals only with phonemes and manipulating the individual sounds of words — such as /c/, /a/, and /t/ are the individual sounds that make up to form the word “cat”. Phonological awareness on the other hand, includes the phonemic awareness ability, and it also includes the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate larger units of sound such as rimes and onsets.

Phonemic awareness can be taught very early on, and will play a critical role in helping children learn to read and spell. While it’s not set in stone on when a child can learn to read, however, I do believe that a child that can speak is a child that can learn to read. Children as young as two years old can learn to read by developing phonemic awareness, and they can learn to read fluently. Please see a video of a 2 year old (2yr11months) reading below.

Below are several of the most common phonemic awareness skills that are often practiced with students and young children:

Phonemic identity — being able to recognize common sounds in different words such as /p/ is the common sound for “pat”, “pick”, and “play”.

Phonemic isolation — being able to recognize the individual sounds of words such as /c/ is the beginning sound of “cat” and /t/ is the ending sound of “cat”.

Phoneme substitution — being able to change one word to another by substituting one phoneme. For example changing the /t/ in “cat” to /p/ now makes “cap”.

Word Segmenting — the parent says the word “lap”, and the child says the individual sounds: /l/, /a/, and /p/.

Oral blending — the parent says the individual sounds such as /r/, /e/, and /d/, and the child forms the word from the sounds to say “red”.

Studies have found that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of reading success in young children. Research has also found that children with a high level of phonemic awareness progress with high reading and spelling achievements; however, some children with low phonemic awareness experience difficulties in learning to read and spell. Therefore, it is important for parents to help their young children develop good phonemic awareness. [1]

Being able to oral blend and segment words helps children to read and spell. According to the National Reading Panel, oral blending helps children develop reading skills where printed letters are turned into sounds which combine to form words. Additionally, word segmenting helps children breakdown words into their individual sounds (phonemes), and helps children learn to spell unfamiliar words.

As a young child begins to develop and master phonemic awareness skills, they will discover an entirely new world in print and reading. You will open up their world to a whole new dimension of fun and silliness. They will be able to read books that they enjoy, develop a better understanding of the world around them through printed materials, and have a whole lot of fun by making up new nonsense words through phonemic substitutions.

For example, we taught our daughter to read at a young age — when she was a little over 2 and a half years old. Before she turned three, she would run around the house saying all types of silly words using phonemic substitution. One of her favorite was substituting the letter sound /d/ in “daddy” with the letter sound /n/. So, she would run around me in circles and repeatedly say “nanny, nanny, come do this” or “nanny, nanny, come play with me” etc… Of course, she only did this when she wanted to be silly and to make me laugh, at other times, she would of course properly refer to me as “daddy”, and not “nanny”. She is well aware of the differences between these words and is fully capable of using phonemic substitution to change any of the letters in the words to make other words.

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