Did you know that the Essential Skills for reading have nothing to do with actual reading?

Did you know that the Essential Skills for reading have nothing to do with actual reading? 

Phonetic Segmenting is one of the essential pre-reading skills your child needs to master in order to read. This is another auditory skill that does not yet use letters or words. With phonetic segmenting a word is broken down into the number of phonemes (individual sounds) or syllables that is in the word. Place markers give the child a clue as to how many sounds are in a word. Remember, segmenting is not about spelling, the number of letters in a word, or about individual sounds because two or more letters can make their own sound. For example, the word “fish” would be broken down into 3 sounds: /f/ /i/ /sh/. A child that can segment, and knows his letter sounds, is ready to start reading words.

Are You Missing a Crucial Step in Teaching your Child to Read?

Written by Maria Wallace

Are you missing a Crucial Step in teaching your child to Read?

A bad habit that many parents and preschool teachers fall into is teaching by asking questions first rather than presenting information first. Asking a child a question they do not know the answer to sets them up to fail, and yet most of us can't help asking "What sound is this?" or "What does this word start with?". A child who is new to learning something will become fatigued and frustrated faster if the lesson consists of questions first rather than the information being presented to them. 

Think about if you were in a big building for the first time and the person giving you a tour asked you if you knew what each room was used for before entering the door. Wouldn't you get pretty irritated saying "I don't know" over and over again, rather than the tour guide telling you "This is the meeting room", etc? We do this to kids all the time! Rather than giving them a piece of information we ask them a question that they may not know the answer to. 

In Montessori, we refer to what is called the 3 Period Lesson. It goes like this: 
1. This is....
2. Can you show me...? 
3. What is this? 

The 1st period is telling the child information. The 2nd period is a question but it is looking for recognition without having to recall specific information. A child merely has to point to the answer. The 3rd period is also a question and is now looking for learning confirmation through an answer. This is where most people start but should only be used once a child has graduated from the first two periods. If the child cannot answer the 3rd period question you drop back to the 2nd period, and if they can't answer the 2nd period you drop back to the 1st.

A child may be in the 1st period for quite awhile. That is okay. Don't rush them. Keep reinforcing the information. Look for situations where you may be setting your child up with questions they are not ready to answer. 

A big area for this kind of mistake is when you are reading a book to your child or they are practicing a phonetic reader. Rather than enjoying a story they are being hassled with "What is the beginning sound....?" or "What is that letter?". If your child seems confused or frustrated STOP asking questions. Or if they are struggling to sound-out words take a break from the phonetic readers for a few weeks and work on pre-reading skills instead. 

Reading a book is not a time for practicing pre-reading skills. It is sure fire way to make them hate reading. Pre-reading skills need to be worked on individually outside of the reading process. A struggling or confused child needs concrete information so that they feel confident in what they know. Once they feel more confident they will move forward much faster and much happier.

Objects for Sound Lessons

Sound lessons are fun and effortless when you use small toy objects that children love to touch and look at. Below are a few links of tube toys at are good quality and offer many beginning phonetic sounds. A word of caution: not all objects will be phonetic. Do not make the mistake of matching a 'giraffe' to a 'g' because giraffe starts with a 'j' sound, or an 'eel' to an 'e' because eel is a long vowel sound. Feel free to ask questions!

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Can 3 year olds read?

Can 3 year olds read? 

The reading process should begin around 3 years old, but does that mean 3 year olds read? Generally, no. Learning to read and write is a process that takes years to develop. Unfortunately, children get started on that process too late. At 3 years old a child should be exposed to the pre-reading skill called Phonemic Awareness. 

Children at 3 years old have the developmental and neural capability to start to hear and pick out different sounds. Simply put, phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and repeat the beginning sounds of words. This is one of the first pre-reading skills that children will need to master before they can read.

Phonemic Awareness is a prerequisite to alphabetic phonics because a child cannot learn the sound associated to a letter if they cannot first differentiate one sound from another. 

Developing phonemic awareness is pretty easy. One way to do it is to simply start saying the beginning sound of a word before you say it. For example: "It's /b/ bath time!" or "Please, pick up your /t/ toys." This is all sound work and does not yet include written letters or letter names. 

Does this make sense? In my opinion this is definitely not too hard for a 3 year old to learn. What do you think?

Simplify the Alphabet!

When children are first learning to read and write we want them to feel successful. After all, success is motivating. A trap that many children fall into is being told they are not doing something right when they are actually making logical decisions. For example, they may write the word 'frog' like this: fRog. Mixing upper case with lower case letters. Or when they are trying to sound out a word they may try to use letter names instead of letter sounds. Each time they are corrected for one of these 'mistakes', it feels frustrating because in a way they are choosing the correct letter just not in the right form.

To simplify, start with only lower case letters since the majority of written language is in lower case, and only teach letter sounds rather than letter names since this is how they will learn to read. Don't worry! Eventually, they will learn it all, but this helps prevent frustration and fatigue.