I've been wanting to write about this for a while. However, finding time to blog is hard these days. Juggling two kids and all of our activities. This post will explain how I taught my 4-year old to read. I know many people fear homeschooling because they are afraid they wouldn't be able to teach their child to read. For me, teaching things like reading are just a part of life. I love teaching and if I was to take a paying job outside the home again, I would most likely teach.
I have a degree in English. However, before having kids, the only "formal" reading instruction I've done is tutoring 3rd graders in math and reading while I was in college. I also volunteered at an elementary school and read to kindergartners and 1st graders, one-on-one. The school encouraged volunteers to come and read to children who were struggling. Sadly, many of these kids didn't have parents who read to them at home. That's when I first learned how important reading to your child(ren) is.
To begin with, I want to remind you that every child is different. I'm very impressed with Caden but he has always had a love of letters and numbers. He's been doing so well lately that a few weeks ago I gave him a few reading tests online and found out that he is reading at a 2nd grade level! His reading has gotten really good and since we home school, I'm trying to decide which language arts to do for kindergarten next year. He's almost done with our "Pre-K," kindergarten curriculum. He's been able to read for a while but he's consistently been able to read very fluently for a few months. The number one way I think to teach your child to read is to read to them, a lot! That's my biggest advice.
Besides me and Collin reading to him, here's how I taught him to read. I taught him the alphabet between 16 and 18 months using an alphabet puzzle and playing a game of matching the letter pieces with their slot. For example, I would pick up a letter, say it's name, then put it where it went. Then he would take a turn and do the same. Before he could say them I would speak for him. He quickly picked this up. He's known the alphabet since he was 18 months old and knew all of the letter sounds before he was 2. I taught him the letter sounds the same way. When he was 2 and 3 I stopped formal reading instruction. I wanted reading to come to him naturally and not feel forced. Also I noticed he was just memorizing the story or words and I really wanted him to learn how to sound words out.
This year I haven't pushed it either but have just done a little bit every week. Not every day, but every few days. When he was 3, I thought him how to read CVC words. He was half-way interested, so I stopped and just went back to reading to him for the fun of reading. He'd memorize books and read them to me picking up words here and there. The only "formal" instruction I've really done this year is going through My Father's World Kindergarten. This is a gentle homeschooling curriculum and I think it has worked great for Pre-K for us. A few things we do each week are, I have him read words and place them with pictures and then I'd tell him a word and he'd find it on a page and underline it or circle it or something like that. When I read to him I point out words, especially sight words. I also downloaded a few free sight word apps for my Kindle. At first he was super interested in them because one of them had the word "but." Go figure, silly boy! So obviously he picked up how to read and spell that word very quickly. Occasionally we'll play some sight word games together. Honestly, he just has a really great memory. He can look at a word and remember it after seeing it once or twice. Which is another reason I held off "teaching" him to read. I wanted to make sure he could phonically read words. When we started level one books, I would read a page, then he'd read a page. Now that's he has gotten the hang of it and it's not too overwhelming, I encourage him to read 1 to 2 books to Gracie every day. He loves reading to his sister. We're going through the Bob books and some Scholastic Little Readers. He's a proud brother to be able to read to his little sister.
So my basic advice is, read to your child every day. This is the most important step. Next, teach the letters of the alphabet, really you could start with their sounds. If you want to go a step further, teach the phonograms, that's how I'm going to teach my daughter when she starts showing interest in letters. Then practice reading books. The great thing about beginner readers is that there are lists of sight words at the beginning of the book. I have my son try and read them. If he doesn't know a word, I tell him. Then we practice it. Once your child is reading, encourage them to read to you every day. The more they practice, the better they'll get. If they aren't interested in reading themselves, read to them. Reading is one thing I would go with your child's pace. To teach letter blends, I point out the blends in words and I have flash cards. He's not really interested in flash cards so we mostly will write the blend or a word or several words with the blend, such as th. I'll write, the, there, that, etc. This seems to work well. Have fun reading with your child! Don't stress. If they aren't interested in reading themselves, just read to them.
If you need more guidance for teaching your child to read. I highly recommend
The Reading Lesson by Michael Levin, M.D. and Charan Langton, M.S. I will most likely start with this when it's time to teach my daughter.
Caden loves working with Collin. They have been having a lot of fun building things together. Recently he's been able to learn how to build things with a hammer and nails. They put together a square foot garden, Caden made a mini square foot garden for himself, and they built a sandbox. I avoided getting him a sandbox because I didn't want sand all over my house but really a sandbox is such a great thing for children to have. Caden loves it and I know Gracie will too! Friday, we surprised Caden by letting him go to work with Collin at his office after lunch for a few hours. This was the first time he's visited by himself to see what his daddy does. Caden had a great time and enjoyed "helping" Collin and learning about what he does when he's away from us. After work they headed to Lowes to get some supplies. I love these pictures of their time together. The one with the map is one of my favorites. 
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Tuesday Caden's preschool had a mother's day luncheon for the mom's of the 4 year old classes. The kids sang a cute song and gave us a few gifts. Last night was their graduation. We got to see a cute puppet show by Uncle Lauren and Jake the puppet, who does their chapel. The kids sang I think 5 songs in English and then a few songs in Spanish. They were given their certificate and then had some refreshments in the fellowship hall. My dad came and Caden loved seeing him there.
Caden has really enjoyed this spring semester at his preschool. I wish I would have known about this school earlier. He's made some sweet friends and has enjoyed playing with them and likes his teacher, Ms. Debbie. His favorites friends were John, Jack, and Cade from his class. He also liked Shelby and they've known each other for a few years. I think Caden's energy level is a little high for her so they didn't play that much at school. He ended up running around more with the boys. In the other class, they ate lunch together and had recess together were Zeaven and Lainey. Caden is a very, very social kid. He loves people and after Gracie was born this was a great place for him to go twice a week. Last night his teacher was talking to me about homeschooling, since that's what we're planning on doing. She said he is incredibly smart, already reading (which we knew), and has a fantastic memory. She recommended a few homeschool curriculums and then said not to bother with kindergarten. She said he is ready for 1st grade and the kindergarten curriculums would be too easy for him. It was nice hearing her perspective on things. We believe Caden is very intelligent and quickly gets things but I don't want to push too hard nor do I want to hold him back. At his 4-year appointment with his pediatrician, she recommended if we didn't homeschool to send him to one of the private schools near us that have a lot of intelligent children. The public schools have too many kids in a class and he would get bored. We can't afford private school on one income at this point so that's not an option right now. Thankfully there are some fantastic co-ops and he'll be attending a school once a week for science, art, and Spanish. I've considered museum school but his preschool teacher thought that would be too easy for him as well but he might like it for the social aspects. We'll just have to see.
Ms. Debbie said some of Caden's favorite things at school are science experiments. He enjoyed those last year in Ms. Susan's class. He loved any letter/word game and playing with the kids. Caden loved the Buzz game Ms. Debbie created and playing outside on the playground. He also liked gymnastics, music, and chapel. I think we can easily find his favorite electives with other kids while teaching him at home.
