Teaching a three and a half year old to read and write?

Question

I want to start teaching my son to read and write. What's the best way to start introducing him to reading and writing? Any other tips regarding teaching him would be great!!

Answer 1

i found with my eldest these simple thing really helped.

make picture/word cards, he gets used to seeing the pic but also will recongnise the words.

read lots, encourage him.

set a time in the day when you read alone and so does he. (dont push him though, if he goes off continue your book for a while)

find a little rhyme book and practise singing the words,

put photos of family members onto cards of their names. if you ask a local preschool for some basic phonic sheets he will move onto those eventually.

my youngest is 2 and she knows lots of words without pics, all her colours and shapes.

my 2nd son didn't want to know. he was a late reader and still struggles, i had to let him go and play. he is an outdoor bird lol.

good luck with the reading and writing. and just have fun. even drawing a squiggle is great cos every letter and number is formed with a different sqiggle. every child differs and if he loses interest, let it go till tomorrow x

Answer 2

First point for a good reader is a love of stories - which means being read to on a regular, daily basis, with enthusiasm and expression.  As a nursery teacher I can see which children have these experiences very easily.

You obviously think your son is ready for reading and writing.

First work with verbal skills, sound out words on a regular basis and reinforce with the word ie 'f-i-sh  =  fish'  

PLEASE DO NOT TEACH CAPITAL LETTERS

Ask your child to sound out words - no reading/writing at this point, your child can spell words without being able to read/write a single letter.

When your child is confident with his letter sounds ('a' rather than 'A') you can THEN begin to introduce the letters and formation.  Your child will have the spelling skills - use a letter line to help him find the letter he needs.  

Start with small 2/3 words and praise him lots.

Verbal skills develop before recording skills - so at thisage concentrate more on these.

This fits into the recent 'letters and sounds' which the government is now pushing.  The link below goes into this programme in more detail - giving the 'phases' that children work through.  It also suggests the order in which to practise letter recognition.

Some schemes - ie jolly phonics cover these.  but you dont need to spend a fortune buying a whole scheme.

Answer 3

You could get some young preschool story books and sit and read them with him as well as getting him to try the words as well as following them in a book with a pen or your finger.

With writing, the best way to start this is to write with your hand wrapped around his and to have triple lined paper so that he can follow the individual shapes of letters.

There are many worksheets that you can get online that will be able to help you with this as well as cheap stores that will be able to help you with work books :)

Answer 4

Be careful, you could cause overkill. If your son is not ready all that will happen is he will get despondent and refuse to learn. That said you need to introduce stories sit with him and read simple stories pointing to the words so he makes the connection between words and pictures. Ask him what he thinks will happen in the story and encourage him to retell the story. Once he can do this you can move to letters and sounds. With writing he needs lots of practise with pencils, if he tries to write something you write underneath what he tells you. This is called emergent writing. Play in a sand tray and show him how to write letters, this allows him to practise and erase mistakes easily.

Answer 5

Your child will learn reading when things finally "click" for him. The more you read to your child and point to each word as you read, the faster your child will pick up that the squiggles on the page of the book actually mean something. Most kids begin reading at age 5 or 6.  But there are some who pick it up more quickly. Boys tend to take longer to make the connection, just because girls are generally more verbal.  

So, read to your son. He will begin reading when HE is ready, not when you want him to be able to accomplish it. So be patient. If you push too hard now, he will hate reading.  So be relaxed about it. Find books your son enjoys and just read to him.

You can put labels on everyday objects. I did that for my son and my daughter. My son is 13 now, and he learned to read just before the end of 5K.  My daughter is just now discovering the link between words and what I say as I read a book. The other day, she picked up a subscription card that fell out of my magazine and held it up and started saying things. She'll be 3 next week.

Another thing you can do is have alphabet toys and songs available. Most kids love learning to music.  And the more your child is exposed to the world of letters, the faster he'll pick up on it. I have the cushiony floor tiles from Lowe's that have each letter of the alphabet on a different tile in my daughters bedroom.  If you have letters which can be held and touched, you can talk about each one your son grabs.  My daughter is currently learning one letter a week in her 2K class. It helps her to learn only one at a time. It would be like going to a party full of people you don't know and then having to name them all at the end of the party.  That's just too much information to take in. So go slow.

When we watch TV, we have  the captions on. It's another way to make the link between words and what they see.

The sites below offer a lot of information on this subject. The last site actually gives an age-to-age listing of what to expect your child to be able to do and how to help them learn more about the world of reading.

Good luck!

Answer 6

Good for you.  You'd be surprised how many parents don't teach their children to read and expect schools to do this.  Obviously not everyone can do this for one reason or another.  One-to-one attention with a parent will always help propel a child when it comes to reading and writing.  To get him interested try starting him on writing his own name (for some strange reason kids really like to be able to do this!!) Also once he's got to grips with letters and simple words (cat, dog, ball etc. the usual) - start pointing to things and asking him to see if he can spell them, sort of making it into a game.  

Finally, buy some alphabet fridge magnets (about 2/3 packets) so he can put words together in the kitchen as well.  

Good luck.  I remember with fondness my mother teaching me with Peter and Jane!!!

Answer 7

first start with introducing him to alphabet. for a 3 year-old, the best way is to use music/movement. once he is familar with alphabets and is able to match/identify the individual letters, move on the introducing him to basic phonics. for example, the sound of the letter A,B,C...from there, slowly introduce him to short-letter words like DOG..use alot of pictures/music as developmentally, a child learns best from a multisensory approach.

good luck!

Answer 8

If your son is ready for readind and writing cool!

There are books available that introduce letters and get the child to copy them ect which are fun and colurfull and many come with reward stickers ect too . Look out for a range called "gold stars" which my son really enjoyed. i got those from tesco i think, and im pretty sure asda do their own books or at least sell a range of them , if not try ELC.

GOOD LUCK with it all and i hope both of you ENJOY learning together and have fun doing it!!!

Answer 9

Start with flash cards with one word on and a picture - for association.

Practice saying them together. Also read a story every night as part of bedtime routine. Start of with short ones.

Answer 10

A word of advice - find out what approach to reading your child's school takes, because if you use a different one you may cause confusion when your child actually starts school, either because he will not agree with the teacher or because he will be telling the other kids they are getting things wrong!

Answer 11

We read to her every night, plus she is exposed to Leappad, "Between the Lions", "Sesame Street".

I also bought these Kindergarten Prep and Grade 1 prep books from Borders Books and Music, but I don't teach her, cause she wouldn't do it for me, she does it for a cow puppet  . . . (which is really me!)

Answer 12

Go to Smiths or a good book shop and look at the wide range of books they do to teach your kids to read and write.  Pick a series of books that YOU like the look of and you think you can work with - then use those.

I helped my son to read and write before he went to school and once he was at school we always sat down in the evenings for 10 minutes or less and looked through the books I had bought to teach him and did a bit of "homework" - it was always enjoyable and never forced (that's very important).

I am pleased to report that he loves reading (he is 11 now).  He reads for half an hour every night at bedtime and its a struggle to take the book off him!  He is top in his maths group and English.  He has just started secondary school and I am really pleased I made the effort when he was younger - I am convinced it has helped him.  There is also no trouble with homework either - if he has homework then its done straight away and there are no arguments.  He accepts it as he has always done "homework".

Hope this helps you and good luck.

Answer 13

with my son, his mother and I read to hime every night for about 20 minutes before he went to sleep. We did this by lying at the side of him in bed and following the words with fingers as we read. I advanced this by substituting words which were not on the page and by age 3 he was catching these every time!

Didn't actively try to teach him but it just went in and on his first day at primary school his teacher rushed out to tell us 'he can read'

I don't think that schools appreciate kids who have had programmed learning pre school but they are amazed when it happens this way.

Make your child comfortable with books and language, with luck they will bring it all together without being 'taught'

Good luck

My son is still an avid reader, there can't be many 20 year olds who visit the library weekly who are not on a college course and looking for information.