Teaching Jack to Read: Tools and a Plan that Worked for Us

When I prepared to send Eliot off to kindergarten, I did not realize what would be expected of him so quickly. I focused on letters, phonetic sounds, and numbers. We reviewed shapes and colors. I never really thought about sight reading. My niece and nephew had learned to read with "keep books," small books that used a lot of repetition with just a few words. These little, paper-back books were stapled together and the students would "keep" them. I figured that since my kids attended school in the same city, we'd have a similar process, so I wasn't worrying about it.

But I was wrong. At Eliot's school, they focused HEAVILY on sight words with word wall words. Students were all assigned a handful of words each week to memorize. They did not focus on phonics much until later with a "word study" each week in place of spelling words. The "word studies" had words that followed phonic rules, so students would organize words based on that phonetic sound. I'm not saying one is right and one is wrong, but I had been preparing Eliot with a different system in mind. The school expects kindergarteners to be reading by the end of the first nine weeks, so I felt incredibly behind.

Eliot caught up quickly and was reading at a second-grade level when he finished kindergarten (and a fourth--almost fifth--grade level when he finished first grade), but I wished I had taken a different approach in the beginning.

The second-born always gets to benefit from the mistakes and lessons learned from the first-born, right? As Jack finished up pre-K4, I did a lot of research into different methods of teaching kids to read. I wanted to include a balance of phonics and sight words. It certainly helped to know the strategy that would be used to teach him in kindergarten.

I found a few really helpful tools that we have used, including apps, books, and writing.

Learn with Homer App
 To work on letters, I subscribed to the Homer app. It is about $7 a month, and parents can set up a "pathway" for kids based on their learning goals. The app includes lessons on letters with videos, games, tracing activities, and more. Multiple children can log into the app and have their own pathways. The app also has ebooks that the children can read or have read to them. I liked Homer a lot, but I began using it after Jack already knew most of his letters. It would have been more useful earlier on. I would definitely suggest it, though, if you are starting out.

Scholastic First Readers Books
At our school, kindergarteners are expected to be reading at a "D" level by the end of the year, but how do you even know what a "D" level is? One way that Scholastic measures their books and reading levels is with letters of the alphabet. When Eliot was in kindergarten, I discovered these box sets organized by the alphabetical reading level. I started with D, and then bought E and F. After Eliot mastered those, I just cut him loose on whatever he wanted to read because he was reading just about anything by that point. To prepare Jack this summer, I bought a box of level A books. Each book has a couple of sight words that are emphasized with repetition. Jack's confidence is built up as he reads a real book. You can get a pack of 25 little books for about $16 on Amazon. I should probably get him the B box!

Usborne Very First Readers Pack
I also worked through Usborne's Very First Readers books. I really liked this approach. The books are meant to be read with your child. The parent reads the page on the left and the child reads the page on the right. The books follow a purposeful plan of introducing small sight words while also teaching phonics. After the child can read the book two times successfully on his or her own, you move onto the next book. It is so fun to watch your kid approach a book that seems challenging at first and then master it. For us, we just had to make sure that Jack wasn't simply memorizing the story since the first book is rather simple. I made him point to the words as he read them. Usborne books can be purchased through a seller, Amazon, eBay, and probably other places as well. I got the set of 15 hardcover books for $35 on eBay. It's a little pricey, but I think it is a well thought-out program and the books are well-made. Usborne has other sets and reading levels, but we have not delved into them beyond this set.

Writing Books Together
I had trouble finding books that were at Eliot's level when he first started learning to read. So many of them seemed too simple or too advanced. Instead, we wrote our own books. He loves to be creative, so we would write books about our pets, dinosaurs, Godzilla, and more. I intentionally included some sight words that he was working on in school as well as some extras that I thought would be helpful to learn. Eliot took pride in our stories, and it was the first time that I could really grab his attention and get him engaged in the reading process. I have done this with Jack as well. He comes up with a topic, we brainstorm together, I write the words, we draw the pictures together, and he colors them. Then we practice reading our books.

Teaching a kid to read can feel like a huge, impossible task, but if you take it slow, try different approaches, and stay positive, they will get there!

Jack has come a long way with reading this summer. I tried to let my boys have unstructured play and laze around this summer too because I think that is important since the school year can get so busy between homework and soccer practice. I make it goal to gain new knowledge over the summer instead of losing it, though, and I am so excited to see what Jack is capable of this fall in kindergarten.