Once upon a time, I taught Kindergarten. I loved teaching those little ones, and I really developed my skills for giving children the pre-reading skills they needed to thrive. I knew how to teach children to read.
Then, I decided to mosey on into an Intensive Support Classroom for two years. These children were in Grades 5-7, and most could not read. During this time, I deepened my understanding of how children truly learn to read. Now I really knew how to teach children to read.
Soon after, I jumped into the homeschooling world with the most loveable (and wild) little crew of my own. Fast forward a few years and I learned one of my children had a severe learning disability. Not to worry—I knew how to teach children to read!
Except it wasn’t working.
I felt scared and alone. I felt the weight of it all pile on me. I was his Mama AND his teacher. I had to figure this out for him. We saw specialists and tutors and teachers, but nothing was working.
I knew what I had to do; I had to take matters into my own hands. No one would care as much as I do. So, I armed myself with even more knowledge. I dove into the (then new) research “The Science of Reading,” and the mystery began to unravel.
It was no longer a question of what to do. It was an actual science.
One step at a time. Teach the one exact skill, practice, and pause until it’s mastered. Then head on to skill number two.
Yes, I could do this! My son could do this.
I knew that I needed to share this with the world. There are SO many children struggling to learn to read. There are so many parents feeling the weight of it all on their shoulders. But we now know exactly how to teach children to read.
And so, How Wee Read: From Rhyming to Letters to Reading in 70 Simple Lessons was born—from this mama’s heart and home to yours.
How to Teach Children to Read
How Wee Read uses The Science of Reading to make teaching your child how to read easy and manageable, with 70 step-by-step, sequential lessons.
These lessons are broken down into four parts:
- Part 1: Phonological Awareness (7 Lessons)
- Part 2: Letters, Sounds, and Blending (12 Lessons)
- Part 3: Special Rules and Exceptions (4 Lessons)
- Part 4: Decodable Readers (47 Lessons)
Below, we’ll take a look at each step in more detail and how it is taught in How Wee Read.
Part 1: Phonological Awareness (7 Lessons)
There are seven pre-reading skills that are even more important for later reading success than knowing the letters of the alphabet. They are called phonological awareness skills, and this is where our adventure begins.
Phonological awareness is auditory in nature; it is about learning to hear and differentiate between sounds. Do two words sound the same? Do they begin with the same sound? What would happen if we left the first sound off of a word; how would it sound then? Since these skills are auditory, you only need to focus on your child hearing, recognizing, and reproducing sounds at this point (attaching letter names to these sounds will happen in Part 2).
In Part 1 of How Wee Read, we introduce your child to phonological awareness through seven playful, hands-on activities:
- Rhyming: Hearing, recognizing, and making rhymes.
- Word Awareness: Understanding where a word begins and ends.
- Sound Identification: Identifying the first, middle, and last sounds in a word.
- Syllable Awareness: Discerning how many sounds are in a single word. Note: This skill should be practiced separately from Word Awareness to avoid confusion.
- Sound Segmenting: Pulling words apart—saying them slowly—to hear the individual sounds.
- Sound Blending: Pushing sounds together and blending them to create words.
- Deleting Sounds: Removing the first or last sound in a word and saying the remaining sounds.
It is important to note that phonological awareness will continue to develop throughout your child’s reading journey. If your child has not yet mastered one of the seven skills above, don’t fret! Continue onto Part 2: Letters, Sounds, and Blending, but add in some extra practice until your child has a firm grasp on the skill. How Wee Read includes fun additional practice activities that you can use for this purpose.
After your child has been introduced to all seven phonological awareness skills, it’s time for…
Part 2: Letters, Sounds, and Blending (12 Lessons)
Next, we dive into learning letters and sounds and blending them together!
In Part 2 of How Wee Read, we introduce the letters to your child in six small groups:
- s, a, t, i, p, n
- c, k, e, h, r
- m, d, g, o
- l, f, b, q, u
- j, z w
- v, y, x
Starting with the first letter grouping—s, a, t, i, p, n—your child will learn each letter in lowercase and uppercase form, as well as the sound that it makes through playful games and activities. Next, your child will practice blending those letters together to read words like sat, pat, tin, and pin. By allowing children to make and read words from the get-go, they see the value in learning letters—they will be able to read and write!
Unlike Phonological Awareness, in this section, you will practice each lesson until your child reaches mastery. This means that you stay with each letter grouping until your child:
- knows all of the letters in lowercase and uppercase form
- knows the sounds that each letter makes
- can blend CVC words using those letters
Once your child can do that, you are on to the next lesson!
And after your child has mastered all the lessons in Part 2, it’s time for…
Part 3: Special Rules (4 Lessons)
Here, we teach your child a few special rules. In Part 3 of How Wee Read, we will introduce your child to:
- Digraphs: A digraph is a combination of two letters that together represent a single sound, or phoneme, in a word. While there are many digraphs in the English language, we focus on the digraphs sh, ch, th, and wh in this section.
- Blends: A blend is a combination of two or more letters where each letter maintains its sound. For example, the ‘fl’ in the word ‘flat’ is a blend.
- Vowels: Vowels are essential in forming syllables and words. In this section, your child will learn how vowels have short and long sounds and how the Magic Letter E can influence a vowel’s sound.
While there are certainly more special rules—the English language is infamous for its rules and exceptions!—these four offer a solid base for your child to move onto Step 4, where we dive into the nitty gritty of rules through decodable stories.
Part 4: Decodable Readers (47 Lessons)
This is where the magic truly begins. Your child is about to learn that they can read stories—already! In Part 4 of How Wee Read, we continue to use The Science of Reading to build your child’s skills, one story at a time.
We start with very simple stories that use CVC words and other simple words your child has already mastered in Parts 2 and 3.
Next, we explicitly and sequentially introduce a new rule or letter combination, one story at a time. The decodable readers in How Wee Read cover:
- CVC Words
- CVCe Words
- The FLOSS Rule
- R-Controlled Vowels
- Common Endings
- The Double Consonant Rule
- Long Vowel Letter Combinations
- Diphthongs
- Sneaky Letters
- Trigraphs
- Silent Letters
Wait until your child has mastery of the rule before starting the next decodable reader. When your child can fluently read the story and the words from the included word list, you’re ready for the next decodable reader!
As we continue through the stories, the previous letter combinations and rules will be included so your child can revisit learned skills and build their confidence.
Each story also includes a simple description of the rule and when it is likely to be used, building your confidence in teaching your child as well!
Story by story, you will see the word complexity and length increase as your child goes from reading: “A bat and a rat sat” to “A week later, he won the first place trophy for his photo!”
An important piece to learning to read is comprehension—ensuring we understand what we are reading. To help your child with this skill, I encourage you to ask them a question or two after each story. These questions can be simply conversations with your child, checking to ensure they understood what they read. Perhaps you ask, “Where was the pig in this story?” Your child would answer in the mud or in the pen. You could then take this conversation further, discussing where other farm animals live or if your child would be interested in digging in the mud! While simple and quick, this is an important step for your child’s literacy development.
The Most Important Part of Teaching a Child to Read
The single most important part of learning to read is hearing stories read aloud. So as you go through How Wee Read and watch in awe of the amazingness that is your child, let’s not forget this essential aspect: read to your child as often as you can. Read in so it feels as comforting to your child as a warm cup of cocoa.
You can do this, mama.
Let’s teach your child how to read!
Discover How Wee Read
From Rhyming to Letters to Reading in 70 Simple Lessons
https://shop.howweelearn.com/pages/howweeread
xo
Sarah
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