Teaching your child to read and write

if hes not interested you may be in for some tough times... me personally i would start with their name as that is something that would interest him.

i have never tried to teach my kids to read but they are read to every night and it just seems to have come naturally to them to want to try and read.

I started with some flash cards, and we just kind of move up to harder stuff as and when he wants to. You could try making an alphabet chart for his room, and for each letter put a photo or picture of something or someone important in his life - like letter M would have a picture of you - mummy, letter C would have a picture of Caprece etc etc.

RachandJack wrote: Oh really? I have noticed other kids his age are already reading a bit so I assumed I should attempt to teach him something lol I think starting with his name is a great idea, thanks.

i might just be a stink bum parent though. my boy is five in july and he cant write his name or read.

Bizzy wrote: RachandJack wrote: Oh really? I have noticed other kids his age are already reading a bit so I assumed I should attempt to teach him something lol I think starting with his name is a great idea, thanks. i might just be a stink bum parent though. my boy is five in july and he cant write his name or read.

I really wanted to have Alan reading a writting before school all he could do in the end was read his name.   He has been at school 8 week's and is already reading a level 3 and writting so to be honest its not all that big of a deal cause they pick it up really quick when they start school. I have been told most teacher would rather you just focus on the sounds of the alphabet rather then teaching them to write cause if you teach them wrong or differnt to the teacher it can make it harder. and know their name tho only thing we were told we should of done was offer him more opptinuties to hold pen's etc like drawing and colouring in.   Anyway bizzy defintly not a stink bum Mum I think you rock.

I'm sorry Butterflymum... it so wasn't my intention!! I have only had one at a time to focus on teaching which makes it a lot easier I'd say... and my work involves building literacy skills and I've done a lot of postgrad study in that area as well so I guess that's why I'm just a little passionate about it

Edited by freckle

We have taught Daniel the alphabet and he can recognise some words, we have done this really causually through some cool dr suess books that the in laws keep buying us for him.

The in laws are really gonna encourage us to get daniel reading and writing since FIL has a phd in something to do with reading.

The post it notes game sounds really cool, gotta remember that one for when Daniel is a little older

Thanks everyone, I think I'll start with his name. He pretends to write and tells me what he has written but he isn't terribly interested in reading although we do read a lot together so I'll see how I go. I really like the idea of teaching sounds rather than letters Freckle I might that one a go too

Hi there ladies!!!!

Paris kinda was a bit interested in this kinda thing so we just started with writing her name, we also had one of those phonic letter things for on the fridge and she'd play with that so learnt the letter names and sounds pretty early on.

Flash cards work ok if you have a kid that sits and is interested.

what we did was go to our local library and they have the Zip and Mac books which i found great as you get ones that start easily and progress, ones that are lie "I am..., I am ...." so they learn that first.
with writing letters, we got a little exercise printing book like they use at schools with the big printing lines on it.. (it's a half size one with purple cover from memory). I went through that and did one letter per page, and would draw a Capital A, for instance, then leave a space, another A, then do one in dashed lines so that they could have a go with guidance....
and do the line below, start with another A.. and put dots at regular intervals so they know where to space them at. next line would be small a, small a, dahsed small a... next line just once small a with dots at intervals to help them know where to space. (if that makes sense) I filled the whole book up with that. and let them go for it. If they are interested they'll have a go with it.

Another thing i found great, was to make up a page with capital letters on one side, well spaced, large bold font, and make another page with small letters on it, and you can usually fit numbers on there too below it.   i put them back to back and laminted it so that once the girs were older they used it alot when they weren't quite sure on a certain letter (they tend to learn some easier than others)   the only thing i say is Make sure that the font you choose is correctly formed letters, nothing fancy... ie, this font, uses the a in that squiggly way instead of a round circle with a stick - which is what schools teach... so make sure if you make one that it models how you want them to learn to form the letter.

just take it little by little and let his interest fuel it.

sometimes we would just have a fun spot hunt... ie i'd be like. Ok, have an idea, let's find things that start with a. we'd go round thinking of words and things and see what around the house we could turn up with. then just practise drawing that letter, and draw pictures around it of the things we'd found. make it interesting.

Ayja has always been like "well if Paris can do it, then i can do it too!" which made it tricky at first when paris started school as Ayja's finemotor skills weren't quite at the stage where she could form letters well and she'd get shirty quite quickly.. but she has moved on now and we found a word chart in paris's sharingbook from school when she first started, with basic words on it... it's a word caterpillar - (ie a caterpillar made of circles and each circle has a different word in it)

she has tha ton paper just hanging on her wardrobe handles and we got some cardboard (old cereal boxes) and made basic word cards to match and each week i change which ones she has, they have a hole in the corner and i have put them on a large ring so she can flip em easily they are just left on a shelf in the lounge by their books.. The first word is always her name, and we put in ones like mum and dad and baby, and a few like I and a, and basic stuff, then added to that. she tends to grab the thing off her wardrobe and come to us with it when she's discovered that she can remember a new word... so she obviously sees it in her room and goes and practices them without us knowing.

She is ahead of where Paris was at this age.. I posted a vid about a year ago on my facebook page with her reading a book with 2 sentences per page... she hasn't moved too much further from this but the words she can recognise are harder and we are working on sounding things out. they pick up and run with it fairly well if you give them the tools.

Paris has skipped forward really nicely and nw at 6 and a half her teacher is getting books from the year 5 nd 6 classes for her to bring home for reading, she told us she reads at a 9 yr old level.

So yeah, not intended as a brag, just to give a few fun ideas.... has worked out really nicely for us, but as others have said.. when we did school visits the teacher was surpised that paris knew a few words and could form letters and some words etc... she said many that she gets can't, and have trouble holding a pencil the correct way... from what i can gather seeing those same kids who started off with the basics, that have moved up in classes with her, they all pick it up in their own time anyway.

(ok, so i wrote a novel again, you know me. lol)

Edited by mum2paris