How I’m Helping My Children Learn To Read
Just when you think this parenting is getting a little easier, you hit another road block. That was the case for us recently as we embarked on the wonderful journey that is teaching our kids how to read. My first mistake was assuming that reading to the kids every night before bed was enough to make it happen. I was incorrect.
Now that I am all grown up, I tend to take a lot of things for granted. I seem to forget that there was once a time where I didn’t know how to tie my shoe, or play hockey, or read a book, and that those things didn’t just happen miraculously overnight. When my son recently struggled with his reading progression, I blamed myself for not pushing him hard enough. The reality of it, however, was that it wasn’t the level of effort that was holding him back, but it was a combination of a few different things.
First, all children learn differently and at different paces. That is probably the hardest thing to grasp as a parent because there is a secret voice inside all of us that pits us against other parents. Just admit it, it’s okay. Second, the method I was using was not effective. I was getting him to try to read his easy reader bedtime books to me, not realizing that he was exhausted from a long day and had little to no interest in trying to get the words right.
I decided to take to the trusty internet to look for some resources to help us with our reading adventure and came across a site called Reading Eggs. It offered online lessons for reading and math that were full of interactive animations, fun games, great songs and lots of rewards, so we signed up for the free trial and got to work. We usually give our son a little bit of screen time for video games but once he started working on the Reading Eggs activities, he began choosing that over his video game time, which, PS, is totally amazing!
Once our trial was done, we noticed a big improvement in both our children’s abilities and decided to sign them both up for the 6 month subscription package, which we are about half way through. Because the kids love it so much, this was one of the few times I have reached out to a company to see if they wanted to partner together to offer something for my readers and they love they idea!
How about you? What has been your biggest struggle or success with helping teach your children to read?
Extended Free Trial Of Reading Eggs!
From now until Nov 30th, if you Visit This Link, you will be able to sign up for an extended 4 week free trial to Reading Eggs! If you do sign up, make sure to let me know how you like it. You can also follow the folks at Reading Eggs on Facebook and Twitter.
It’s fascinating how kids differ. Our daughter taught herself to read at 4. It was the weirdest thing. We read to her all the time but didn’t specifically attempt to teach her to read. She just sort of picked it up and we didn’t know until I realized she was reading emails over my shoulder!
My son, who is now 5 cannot read on his own and has very little interest in learning. He loves “reading” books but that basically means we or his sister are reading them to him.
The interesting part of all this is that when we read to my daughter she was always looking at the words. When we read to my son is is always looking at the pictures.
I am so excited to start using this with my youngest! All signed up and ready to go!
thanks for the recommendation i’ve told my sister to come and check out your blog, it might be good for my niece who is very eager to read.
Great to watch this discussion about developing literacy on your blog! There are so many things parents can do to help their children grow into successful readers: playing with language, playing with rhyme, using reading and writing in ways that are useful (reading instructions together, recipes, making lists when we are planning something), nursery rhymes, and of course, read, read, read a great variety of types of books (fiction, non-fiction, comics, instructions, poetry, magazines, online, etc.)
Sometimes, even though parents have done everything right, a child will encounter difficulties. It is usually due to a weakness that makes it hard for them to make the connection between a symbol (the letters) and a sound that goes with it. Everything parents do to increase their phonemic awareness (play with sounds!) is good stuff. However, there are a list of things to watch for that may indicate problems are brewing. The good news is… that early intervention matters, and can make a big difference. Did you know that how many sounds a child knows by the end of kindergarten is one of the strongest, and most reliable indicators of future reading success?
This is awesome!
Thanks for sharing. Reading is something that is very important to do with your kids, especially during the younger years. I think it’s something that some parents over look.
I’m definitely going to check Reading Eggs!
I love your article on helping your kids to read. I’m a great proponent of reading to kids at bedtime but agree that they’re too tired to do the reading themselves. It’s a great time to bond with them, read a story that’s above their reading level that may have an exciting plot and can be continued night after night. We read my youngest The Hobbit and he loved it! This makes bedtime easy too, as kids look forward to their story. Also, it opens up communication lines and you can ask about their day and tell them about yours. What was good about today? What was bad? Kids need their parents to spend a little time with them at bedtime.