Teaching Reading

Recently a new homeschooling mother made contact with me asking how I taught my children to read as she was struggling with her ds6.

After initially telling her that we didn't push reading until a child showed an interest in learning which for us was usually around age 7. She then went on to ask a couple of more specific questions which I have pasted below with my responses.

I don't know how often I read posts on Yahoo from new home schoolers who are struggling with teaching reading probably

"Nina, what kind of read alouds did you use? "
I just go to the library and get mountains of picture books and read, read, read to my kids even now that they are older and can read well themselves they still enjoy me reading nice picture books to them.


"What kind of reading curriculum did you use when they started to show an interest? "
I have never used a complete packaged reading curriculum as I find that reading development does not follow any prescribed path. Often progress happens in fits and starts meaning that sometimes children will take longer to grasp things than a curriculum may allow for and other times they catch on much faster that the curriculum expects. I don't believe a reading curriclum can truly cater sufficiently to this aspect of reading development. And I do not believe there is any prescribed NORM when it comes to reading development.

I personally prefer to use some aspects of a variety of curriculum's as a resource and just slot things in as and when needed.

Some that I have liked and used as supplements to my teaching approach here and there include....

Spectrum Reading
BJU Reading
Horizons Phonics and Reading
www.readinganz.com - free printable readers

Mostly though I once again just use library books. I am thankful that my library has a good supply of graded readers .

Some series that we have used are...

Red Rocket Readers
Literacy Web readers
Oxford Literacy Tree Readers

And a whole heap of others.

The way I go about teaching reading is a very natural extension of our enjoyment of reading picture books together as a family.

Here is Our typical reading program...

The Early Years - Birth - 3 years
From day 1 I make a part of our day reading time. In the early days I will just look at pictures in books with babies and toddlers and as I read aloud to them I point out interesting things and make silly noises and voices.

Pre- reading Years - 3 -5/6 years
During these years our reading times begin to include me reading beautifully illustrated picture books aloud to the children and pointing out interesting things in pictures. We read our favourites over and over again having children recite parts they know off by heart.
Some of our favourites for this stage include...
Hairy Macleary
Madeliene
Dr Seuss - especially "Green Eggs and Ham"

Early Learning Years - 5 - 7/8 years
This is the time when I begin to point to words as I am reading aloud and to have children repeat sentences after me. This is when I point out the sounds of letters as I am reading and ask children if they know what sound a letter makes. During this time we begin to read graded readers. Initially I read them and have the children copy me than they begin to read the odd word, then the odd sentence and eventually the odd page. As we are reading I point to the pictures and we talk about what is happening in the pictures. I try to use words that featyure in the story on that page so that when it comes time for the child to read they already have all the words they will need and just need to slot them into place. During this time I also introduce phonics worksheets and handwriting practice and have the children narrate their own stories to me which I write down for them. Another thing we do during this stage is to read a picture book then have the children draw a picture about their favourite part. They then tell me what is happening in their picture and I write a simple sentence to go under their picture which they trace over or copy underneath. This is a long stage and every child progresses at their own pace through various guided reading series.

Independent Reading Stage 7 - 10 years
After 1 - 3 years in the learning to read stage I find the children are usually ready to start reading for enjoyment and then I begin to encourage them to read short and easy chapter books such as Captain Underpants, Rainbow magic fairy books, Littlest Animal Ark and many others. I will usually have them read 1 - 2 pages aloud to me from their current reading book every other day or for struggling readers every day usually this is just 10 minutes at a time. During this stage I also begin reading aloud to them from some of the well known childrens classics such as Black Beauty, Heidi, Peter Pan, Robinson Crusoe etc and other highly recommended prize winning literature such as "A Cricket In Times Square". This is the time when they begin to create the pictures to aqccompany the stories in their own heads upon listening to me read the words rather than always seeing them in a picture book. Although I still read picture books aloud to them often as well.

Profficient Readers - 10+ years
Somewhere between the ages of 9 and 12 I have found my children become truly profficient readers and are ready for assigned reading materials. During this time I research lists online of Living Books and highly recommended Literature. I then sources these at our library or purchase locally and assign then to my children to be read during school reading times and in their own time. On and off during their reading of a book and at the end of each book I have the children tell me all about it. occasionally I may also have them write a book report or a summary of the book talking about what they did and didn't like about it and why. I am of course still trying to read aloud to them from quality Literature and even the odd picture book on a daily basis.

Naturally the ages and stages differ from child to child but this is a general outline based on my own children's development so is not to be taken as the expected norm which I do not believe in anyway.