Reading has always been an important part of my life. Growing up we were surrounded by books and there was always something to read.
I remember combing my father’s hair at night while he read aloud to us. Every once in a while we would have to turn out the lights so we could see the sparks from the static electricity that the comb made going through his hair.
As my siblings and I got a little older, my mother would sometimes have us help work on homemade Christmas presents for our aunts, some sort of cross-stitch project, while she would read aloud to us. Double bonus!
We had books all over the house. One whole wall in my bedroom was covered in books and our upstairs hall and loft were lined with full bookshelves. I spent hours there poring over encyclopedias reading about Ancient Egypt, or Greece, or Rome, or I traveled the world through the pages of our numerous National Geographic magazines. There was also a lot of fiction to read when I just wanted to sit down with a good book.
Where to start
Set the example
As a parent, you first need to look at yourself. Yep. Guess who your children are watching? YOU!
Are you a reader? Do you show your kids that reading is important? My kids see us reading all. The. Time.
Unfortunately, as we read more on electronic devices, they don’t always know that we’re actually reading and not just surfing facebook again. I would suggest trying to find that new novel or gardening book you’re interested in as a hard copy. Make mention often of what you’re reading out loud, “Wow! Did you know tulip bulbs are edible?” Show them you’re learning from and enjoying your reading. “I can’t wait to find out what happens in the next chapter! This left off at a real cliff-hanger!”
And if you’re not a reader, now is a good time to become one. There are books on every topic. You must have SOMETHING you are interested in! Look it up and go for it!
Read to your children
This is SO important and is a wonderful time to gather your sweet children around you. Do it even with your older children.
I usually break up my morning reading time between my older and younger kids. I do a read-aloud at the end of our morning devotional that my little ones go off and play during, and then when we have finished with that I send the older ones off to do school while I read picture books with my 3 and 5 year old.
Sometimes my younger ones will come and hang out with us while I read our chapter books out loud because they hear the gasps of horror, laughing, or squeals of delight from their siblings who are enjoying the book. See what is happening here again? The younger ones are seeing the wonders of books by watching their older siblings. Example!
In the evening we have a family read-aloud for everyone.
Here are some of my kids’ favorite alphabet books. Frankly, they drive me and my husband crazy to read, but that’s partly due to them currently being my 3-year-old’s favorite book series right now. We read them over, and over, and over again! They have the alphabet in the front and the back of each book so we sing it each time we come to it. The books are fun for kids because you do the bulk of the reading, but there are pictures as you go along so the kids can “help.” I use this resource mostly just for letter recognition. We received most of the set from my mother who found them at a thrift store. My sister found her set at a thrift store as well, so I would suggest checking out that resource first.
Turn off/limit TV
Compared to just watching TV, reading is hard! Your mind actually has to focus and work while reading compared to just soaking in whatever comes off the TV screen.
Increased TV exposure for a child, even if the TV is on somewhere nearby, is linked with less ability to recognize their own and other people’s feelings, delayed language, and the increased possibility of having behavioral problems.
On the other hand, the more you read to a child, the more you can increase their vocabulary, language, and reading skills.
So where do my kids go when they get bored? To the books! Even the little ones who aren’t reading quite yet will go get a book and flip through it. Some of the books they’ve had read to them so many times that they are able to “read” it to themselves. Just looking at pictures will get them to bring me a book so they can learn what the story is behind the pictures.
Have books available
They can’t read what they don’t have. Do you have a library card? If not, go get one! It will save you a lot of money and help keep fresh and interesting reading material around your home.
Check out thrift stores for books. You can get great used and new books online.
Maybe swap books with friends periodically.
Have the books where they can access them for themselves.
Learning to Read
Surround yourself with letters and make it fun!
With child number one and two, I had already decided I was going to homeschool while they were really little, so we were always reading and doing letter recognition. I immersed them in letters without always making it a formal learning time.
Letter magnets on the fridge, foam letters in the tub, a homemade alphabet chart on the wall; letters were something fun! We would sing the alphabet song as part of their bedtime routine.
When they were old enough, between 3-5, we would play letter bingo and letter “Go Fish.” Any game that involves letter recognition in a fun, relaxed, pressure-free way.
My friend takes letter magnets to the park and sticks them on the metal park equipment for her kids to do some of their learning there.
The book to use
My most favorite book that I tell everyone about is Phonics Pathways by Dolores G. Hiskes. I LOVE this book! I am on my fourth child with it and I will never use anything else.
Since I was the 2nd of six children in my family, and am quite a bit older than my younger siblings, I had to help them when they were learning to read. I HATED some of the programs that my mom used and was scared to teach my own children to read from the experience.
Thankfully, this book was recommended in another one of my all-time favorite homeschool books, The Well-Trained Mind, and it has been a game changer! There aren’t colorful flashy pictures in Phonics Pathways, but the letters are big and friendly and the sections are broken up nicely. There are a few games throughout the book that you can copy and laminate, which I highly recommend doing. My kids love them. The older ones still come running to play when I get them out for my younger ones!
Everything is laid out step by step and I don’t know that I’ve ever finished the book completely with any of my children because they are fantastic readers by about 2/3-3/4 of the way through that we just gradually move on to other things.
Other resources
One of the programs that my mother used for my younger siblings that I actually liked was Sing, Spell, Read & Write. This is a bright, fun, musical program. I don’t have a lot of experience with the actual program itself, although I like what I remember, but luckily for me, my mom saved all her materials and passed them on to me when I started teaching my own children. Score! The readers (here and here) and games with this program are FANTASTIC! Again, my 3 and 5-year-old like me to read these books for story time. My 5 year-old is starting to be able to read them on his own now. I can’t guarantee the games are all the same as they were 20 years ago, but this is the program that had the Go-Fish and Alphabet Bingo games that I talked about earlier. I recommend checking it out.
While simple, my kids have also enjoyed reading the Bob books. It gives a real sense of accomplishment when they read their first book by themselves! These book are perfect for that. I have only really used the first set because these books are so simple that I want to move them on to better literature quickly, but they are good for that first time period while the child is gaining confidence in their reading skills.
One last thought. If your child is very reluctant to read, take a step back and just read to them. Then gradually add in a little bit of the lessons as they are ready for them. In Phonics Pathways, I have had my child only do a couple words as their lesson for the day if they really didn’t want to do it for whatever reason. By doing that little bit, they see that we still have school to do, but it isn’t painful. You just don’t want to force your child or you run the risk of them hating to read.
By teaching your children to read you are opening up many different worlds to them. Happy reading!