Teaching your kids to read

[Texasmom]

I use progressive phonics and reading eggs and that seems to be working really well.

[luvinmybaby!]

I started reading to my 4 year old at birth. She knew all her letters (upper and lower) and their sounds by the time she was 24 months. That is early for the majority of children though. For the letters, good books were Dr. Seuss ABC's and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. For sounds, I had the leap frog magnet letters on the refrigerator that sang a song for each letter sound. I felt it was more effective when I picked a letter in my hand and sang myself because the voice is more clear, and children watch your lips. Songs are a great way to teach a child. My DD learned the 50 states song at age 3 and can now quickly recite all 50 states in alphabetical order quickly...would have never learned without a song.

She started recognizing words when she was 2 and reading BOB books when she was 3. I encouraged her to read and incorporated her reading a BOB book to me at bedtime after I read her a book. I never forced it if she didn't want to read that day, but almost all of the time she wanted to. She's reading some regular children's books now, like Go Dog, Go.

Stay away from the gimmicky programs where you pop in a DVD and expect the TV to teach your child to read. Eventually they will catch on through watching them, but studies have shown that young children learn much more quickly learning from a real person than a 2D image, about 7x faster. Plus the american association of pediatrics recommends children under the age of 2 (some argue age 3) to not watch any TV/movies at all, and only 1 hour per day after that due to increased risk of developing ADHD.

[MeCo7707]

I bought the old school **** and jane books...they seem to be working

[linz2491]

For my oldest I used reading reflex which was awesome and easy.

My middle son is far too defiant to use that with, plus he just insisted he could not read!
So we also did dock and Jane. That was the turning point. Gave him confidence I think that he did not have to re sound out every word. The whole words worked for him.
Then we moved on to time. 4 learning which my son seemed to enjoy more. (Though believe me be will die before admitting that!)
That really did a good job doing the phonics and we do a bit of the reading reflex as well.

[MeCo7707]

..... I did not realize Docks nam was bad...opps, but also lol