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How To Teach Yourchild Toread: A Quick Guide For Parents

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
411 views26 pages

How To Teach Yourchild Toread: A Quick Guide For Parents

Uploaded by

Pauli Espínola
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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HOW TO TEACH

YOURCHILD
TO R E A D
a quick guide for parents
2nd Edition

by Anna Geiger, M.Ed.


Creator of The Measured Mom
Terms of Use

How to Teach Your Child to Read: A Quick Guide for Parents, 2nd Edition

© 2021 by Anna Geiger. All rights reserved worldwide.

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This ebook was created as a subscriber freebie for your personal use. Please
do not share with others via email, online, or through a printed copy. Instead,
direct others to themeasuredmom.com to subscribe.

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infringement, including infringement without
monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is
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Table of Contents

Introduction … 4
Chapter 1: The Big Picture … 5
Chapter 2: Pre-Reading Skills … 6
Chapter 3: All About Phonics … 11
Chapter 4: What about Sight Words? … 15
Chapter 5: Comprehension is the Goal! … 18
Chapter 6: Building Fluency … 20
Chapter 7: Be a Reading Coach … 26
Chapter 8: Putting it All Together … 23
Conclusion … 24

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. –themeasuredmom.com - 3


Introduction

I get emails from parents every week. They want to teach their children to read, but they don’t
know where to start. They’ve heard about phonics, sight words, and comprehension. But how do
the pieces fit together? Where do they begin?

This ebook is my answer.

I want to remind you that people go to college for years to learn to teach kids how to read. Then
they go to graduate school to learn even more. And they keep learning, over decades of teaching.
All of that information cannot be compressed into a single ebook. My goal with this ebook is not
to tell you everything there is to know about teaching kids to read. Instead, my goal is to clear the
fog and help you see both the big picture and where to begin.

Let’s get started!

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. –themeasuredmom.com - 4


Chapter 1 - The Big Picture

Primary teachers know that there are essential components of effective reading instruction. They
include the following:

1 - Phonological & Phonemic Awareness


2 – Phonics
3 – Fluency
4 – Comprehension
5 – Vocabulary

Let’s break those down – and I promise I’ll finish describing them before we get to to the next
page!

PHONOLOGICAL AND PHONEMIC AWARENESS have to do with sounds. Think of these as


things kids know before they learn to read. Phonological awareness includes rhyming, an
awareness of word, the ability to count syllables, and phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness
is the ability to play with sounds in words.

PHONICS has to to do with letters and the sounds they make, either alone or in combination with
other letters to form words.

FLUENCY refers to children reading accurately, at a good pace, and with good expression.

COMPREHENSION is about understanding what is read.

VOCABULARY refers to the meanings of the words within a text.

See, we finished Chapter 1 already! I told you this would be quick.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 5


Chapter 2 – Pre-Reading Skills

Many parents try to teach their kids to sound out words, only to be met with frustration. This may
be because the child is too young or not developmentally ready. That’s why this chapter is so
important.

Even though I know you want to jump to the good stuff, please don’t skip this chapter. I’ll try to
make it quick – promise!

Let’s break it down into five things your kids need before you should dive into teaching reading.

1 – BEFORE THEY READ, KIDS NEED CONCEPTS OF PRINT

Most kids will learn concepts of print naturally as their parents or caregivers read to them. They
will learn things like how to hold a book, how to turn the page, and that print begins on the left
and goes to the right.

You can develop concepts of print by asking your child to open the book before you read aloud.
You’ll see if s/he can identify the cover and turn the pages in the proper way. This is pretty easy
for most kids.

What gets trickier is the concept of word – which basically means saying one word for each word
in print. Did you know you can actually teach this before kids recognize words in isolation?

There are a few simple ways to teach the concept of word at home. One thing you can do is buy a
pocket chart. Then you can write repetitive sentences or rhymes on long strips of paper, put them
in the pocket chart, and help your child practice “reading” them using a simple pointer. I have a lot
of free pocket chart sentences you can print and use. Grab them here:
https://www.themeasuredmom.com/tag/pocket-chart-sentences/

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 6


2 – BEFORE THEY READ, KIDS NEED PHONOLOGICAL & PHONEMIC AWARENESS

We’ll talk about three things in this section: rhyming, syllables, and phonemic awareness.

Rhyming

I can almost guarantee that if your child can’t rhyme, learning to read is going to be hard. If your
learner struggles with producing or identifying rhyming words, read lots of rhyming books aloud.
Then have him/her fill in missing rhyming words when s/he is familiar with the book.

Get the ultimate list of rhyming books here: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/the-ultimate-list-


of-books-that-rhyme/

If you need more ways to practice rhyming, check out this post on my blog:
https://www.themeasuredmom.com/activities-for-learning-rhyming-words/

Syllables

This isn’t as complicated as it sounds. We’re not talking about kids dividing words into syllables on
paper – just clapping the syllables of a word. Start with your child’s name. Show him/her how to clap
the syllables. If your child can’t do it, try some of the simple syllable activities from this post:
https://www.themeasuredmom.com/6-syllable-activities/

Phonemic awareness

Phonemic awareness is somewhat challenging to teach, but extremely important. I want to break
down exactly what it is and give you some places to start.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to play with sounds in words. It does NOT have to do with
connecting letter names to the sounds they make. So … if your child can tell you that “sun” starts
with /s/, he or she is doing great. And by the way, those brackets around the “s” (as in /s/) mean that
I am referring to the sound ssssss, not the letter “s.” It’s an important distinction.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 7


So how do you teach phonemic awareness? You start simple. You have your child identify the
beginning sounds of words using something like my free games (pictured below). Don’t overdo it if
the game is hard for your learner. 1-2 games per day will do it.

Grab the whole set here: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/phonemic-awareness-games/

The games pictured above worked great for my younger daughter, but you don’t have to use a
printable to teach phonemic awareness. It can be done through completely oral activities.

As I learn more about the science of reading (the body of research that explains how we learn to
read), I’ve learned that daily phonemic awareness activities are extremely helpful – even
essential for some children. The good news is building phonemic awareness is easy to do, and
doesn’t take much time at all.

Classroom teachers love Heggerty, which is fantastic if you have the budget for it.

https://heggerty.org/shop/

If you have some time, you can save money and print a free curriculum at Reading Done Right.

https://www.readingdoneright.org/programs-by-grade

I also recommend adding playful phonemic awareness games into your day. See the following
page for a list of ideas.
How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 8
Quick games to build phonemic awareness

1- Put Them Together

“I have a mystery word. See if you can put the two parts together to figure it out. Here we go… /f/
/ish/. That’s right, the word is fish! Let’s try another one. /b/ /all/. You got it – ball!”

2 – I Spy

“I spy something on our table that starts with /p/. What do you think it is?”

3 – Stretch It

“What do you think it would sound like if snakes could talk? I think they would say their words
veeerrryyyy ssssllooooowwwwlllyyy. Let’s try to talk like a snake. Say the word cat like a snake
would. Caaaaaaat. Let’s try another one – man. Mmmmmmaaaaannnnnnn.”

4 – Break it apart

“I’m going to say a word. I want you to break it apart. Say the first sound, and then the rest of the
word. Let me show you what I mean. Let’s do horse. /h/, /orse/. Now you try one – pig. That’s
right, /p/, /ig/.”

5 – What sound do you hear?

“I’m going to say a word. Tell me what sound you hear at the beginning. The word is pen. Yes, the
beginning sound is /p/. What sound do you hear at the end? Yes, the sound is /n/.”

Also see this helpful video about teaching phonological and phonemic awareness:
https://www.themeasuredmom.com/5-things-about-phonological-and-phonemic-awareness/

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 9


3- BEFORE THEY READ, KIDS NEED LANGUAGE AND LISTENING SKILLS

Can you guess how these develop? Yup – through you reading aloud to your child A LOT. When
you read (and discuss) books with your child regularly, encourage him or her to:

• retell the story in his/her own words


• engage with the story as you read by asking questions and making personal connections
• answer simple questions about the story
• make an educated guess at the meanings of new words

Definitely read this post with more details about how to make the most of your read aloud time:
https://www.themeasuredmom.com/get-ready-for-kindergarten-with-interactive-read-alouds/

4 – BEFORE THEY READ, KIDS NEED TO KNOW LETTERS AND SOUNDS

Now, let me say that kids do not necessarily need to know all their letters and sounds before they
learn to read. For example, one method of teaching phonics includes teaching a few letters and
sounds each week. Then kids put just those letters together to read words. So for example … with
the letters m, t, p, and a, kids can read mat, tap, and pan.

If you are teaching a kindergartner who still doesn’t know all the letters and sounds, it may be best
to teach a few new letters each week as you also teach him/her to sound out words (as described
above). However, if your child is still in preschool, learning to read will be much easier if you nail
down those letters and sounds first.

If you’re looking for ideas and inspiration for teaching the alphabet, check out this page on my
blog: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/learning/

5 - BEFORE THEY READ, KIDS NEED TO WANT TO LEARN TO READ

If you’re attempting to teach your child to sound out words and one or both of you are
consistently frustrated, it will not end well. It may be that your child simply isn’t ready for this skill
(see pre-reading skills #1-4), or it may be that it’s not on his/her list of priorities. If children are

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 10


motivated to learn to read, you can expect the following to be true:

• They enjoy being read to.


• They frequently ask you to read aloud.
• They pretend to read.

If your child doesn’t enjoy books yet, don’t give up! Reduce screen time, and read aloud as often as
your child will listen. You can check out our favorite books here:
https://www.themeasuredmom.com/the-best-book-lists-for-early-childhood/

Okay, I kept the chapter about pre-reading skills to under ten pages. Not bad, right? Let’s move on to a
biggie … phonics.

Chapter 3 – All about Phonics

I will be up front here and let you know that my view on phonics has changed over the years. I have
always believed that teaching phonics in necessary, but I did not always believe that phonics should
be the primary focus when teaching children to solve words. Nor did I think that beginning readers
should read all decodable text based solely on phonics patterns they’ve learned.

However, after studying the science of reading and the current research about how we learn to read,
I’ve concluded that sounding out words is more important (and takes a more central role) than I’d
previously surmised.

In the past I believed (as I learned in graduate school) that children should be taught to use three
different cues as they solve words. I thought that children could sound out the word, use the
picture, or use context to figure out the word. I believed that as they learned more phonics, they
would start to sound out more words.

However – without getting too technical on you – I want to explain how the brain learns to read. We
don’t have a special part of the brain hardwired for reading. We have to train the brain to read. We
are basically helping a part in the back left of the brain (that recognizes pictures) to connect to the
part in front left of the brain (that recognizes sounds). In other words, we need to teach the brain to
connect the sounds to the letters.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. –themeasuredmom.com - 11


If we teach kids to use pictures or context clues to identify words, we are actually teaching them
to use the right side of the brain. By examining brain images, scientists have discovered that this
(the right side) is where poor readers do much of their reading work.

So let’s teach good habits right from the start … by teaching kids to sound out words rather than
guess at them (even if those are good guesses which use the pictures and context). This will help
the circuits fire where they’re supposed to. (Forgive me for that very unscientific statement. I think
you know what I mean!)

WHAT ORDER SHOULD YOU TEACH PHONICS SKILLS?

I recommend following a sequence of phonics skills that goes like this:

• consonant and short vowel sounds


• CVC words (such as hat, pig, bug, etc.)
• Short vowel words with blends and digraphs (such as flat, chip, etc.)
• Long vowel CVCe words (like, bake, rode, etc.)
• Other single syllable long vowel words (coat, pay, rain, etc.)
• Words with r-controlled vowels (farm, her, bird, curl, horn, etc.)
• Words with complex vowels (walk, worm, cold, etc.)
• Words with diphthongs (cow, couch, toy, join, saw, sauce, etc.)
• Simple multi-syllable words with common prefixes and suffixes
• More complex multi-syllable words using common syllable types

For a fantastic guidebook about teaching phonics – including word lists and more - I recommend
Wiley Blevins’ book, Phonics From A to Z.

HOW TO GET STARTED TEACHING PHONICS

I just gave you the list of phonics skills – in order. Now let’s talk about how to get started.

One method includes teaching a few letters and sounds each week and then putting them
together to form words. In that case, this may be a helpful sequence for teaching letters along
with their sounds: m, a, s, p, t, n, i, d, r, c, f, b, o, h, g, e, l, k, w, u, j, x, v, y, q, z

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – ©themeasuredmom.com - 12


If you teach the first four letters the first week, you can teach your child to sound out the
following words: mat, Sam, pan, map, sap, and Pam. Each week, as you add more letters, you
have more CVC words your child can learn to read.

Another method – and the one I’ve used with some of my own children – is to teach all the
letters and sounds first, and then teach beginning phonics using short vowel word families. For
example, if your child knows all the letters and sounds, you can teach him/her to read the “at”
word family: cat, rat, bat, hat, sat, mat, and vat.

If you want to use the word family method, here are some common short vowel word families:

Short a: ab, at, ad, an, ag, ap, am


Short e: ed, eg, et, en
Short i: it, id, ig, im, ip, in
Short o: ot, ob, op, og
Short u: ut, ub, ug, um, un, ud

Here’s a link with a free printable list of CVC words that you can print and use as you design your
phonics activities with CVC words:

https://www.themeasuredmom.com/free-printable-cvc-word-list/

Favorite resources for teaching phonics with word families

I created these word family mats when I was teaching my own children to read. While older
versions are available for free on my blog, I recommend the new and improved version from my
shop. You have a lot more printing options, the images are higher quality, AND the mats come
with no-prep games that aren’t part of the free version.

Learn more here:


https://www.themeasuredmom.com/product/short-vowel-word-family-mats/
How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 13
Most of all, I recommend my collection of CVC books and games. You can learn more about them
in my shop: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/product/phonics-books-games-cvc-words/

Teach successive blending

While I did teach some of my kids to read using word families, I revised my approach with my
youngest two kids. I taught them all their letters and sounds first. Then I taught them to sound out
words using successive blending … in which you sound out each word letter by letter. This can be
harder at first, but if you have laid a good phonemic awareness foundation, it may be more helpful in
the long run because it requires kids to pay attention to every single sound in order.

Learn more here:


https://www.themeasuredmom.com/how-to-teach-blending-sounds/

HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR PHONICS LESSONS

So – I gave you the sequence of phonics skills. And I gave you options for how to approach
CVC words. What about as you move farther down the list? What should your phonics lessons
look like? Try this:

1 – First, do a phonemic awareness warm-up.

2 – Next, explicitly teach the new phonics pattern. For example: “Today we’re going to learn about
the digraph sh. The letters “sh” make the sound /sh/.”

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 14


3 – Give your child practice blending words with the featured sound. For example, ship, shun, shed,
and sham.

4 – Give your child magnetic letters or letter tiles. Name words with the featured pattern, and have
him/her build words.

5 – Give your child practice reading the new phonics pattern using decodable text. A lot of it! It
helps to have a big collection so that your child looks forward to reading and doesn’t dread it.
Believe it or not, there are quite a few options for you when it comes to quality decodable books.

As I write this ebook I’m finishing up a post of learn my favorites:


https://www.themeasuredmom.com/the-ultimate-list-of-decodable-books

6 - Do guided writing practice. Say words with the featured phonics pattern (and those you’ve
already taught), and have your learner spell them alone or in sentences.

Chapter 4 – What about Sight Words?

Traditionally, when teachers say “sight words” they are referring to high frequency words that children
should know by sight. We often define sight words as words that kids can’t sound out – words like
the, for example.

However, reading researchers have a different definition of sight words. They define sight words as
words that students can read instantly – whether or not these words are irregular. Obviously, we want
our children to have a large bank of these words so that they can read more fluently and, thus,
comprehend what they are reading.

So should we get lists of sight words and get our kids to memorize them using flash cards?

Not so fast.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 15


Remember when I explained how the brain learns to read? Kids can only remember a limited number
of words by memorizing them. They will do better if we teach the new high frequency words
explicitly, letter by letter.

Here’s a good approach to teaching new “sight words”:

• First, know your goal. Your goal is NOT to teach loads of words as whole words, because kids need
to connect the sounds to the letters when reading. Instead, your goal is to integrate sight word
learning with phonics instruction.
• Name the new word, and have your learner repeat it.
• Name the individual phonemes (sounds) in the word. For example, in the word is there are two
phonemes: /i/ and /z/.
• Spell the sounds. Call attention to any unexpected spelling. In is, we spell /i/ with i and /z/ with s.
• If possible, have your learner read related words. Has and is are great words to read alongside is
because they are short vowel words with an s that represents the /z/ sound.
• Have your learner read connected text. Connected text can be decodable sentences or books.

I have a collection of 30 FREE high frequency word lessons with accompanying decodable texts on
the website. Find them here: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/free-sight-word-books/

WAYS TO REVIEW SIGHT WORDS

After you teach the words, you’ll want to find fun ways to review them. This doesn’t have to take
long, but it does need to be hands-on and engaging as often as possible. Here are some things to try:

1 – Concentration

Print each word on two index cards. Turn them upside down, and take turns drawing two cards,
reading them aloud, and trying to find a match.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 16


2 - Stamp the words

Grab some alphabet stamps and an ink pad, and have your child stamp sight words.

3 – Play Zap it!

Write one sight word each on the end of jumbo craft sticks. Color the end of one stick red.
Students take turns pulling the craft sticks and reading the words. If they get the red Zap it! stick,
they have to put all the sticks back. Whoever has the most sticks at the end of 10 minutes (or
however long you choose), wins the game.

4– Type the words into editable reading games … then print and have fun!

I’ve created a fun collection of editable reading games that work for any words. Simply type them
in, and print whatever game you’d like. Kids love the variety in this bundle, and so will you!

Check out our editable reading games here:


https://www.themeasuredmom.com/product/editable-seasonal-sight-word-game-mega-pack/

Chapter 5 – Comprehension is the Goal!

Being able to sound out words and read irregular words is important. If kids can’t can’t identify words, they
can’t read the words in a text. (Obviously.) But what happens when kids read the words in a text but don’t
understand? Are they really reading?

No. For kids to be actually reading a text, they need to understand it. You might be interested in The Simple
View of Reading, which is a formula (well supported by research). In the formula, reading comprehension is a
product of word recognition and language comprehension. We need both.

This quick video explains it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtDEMHMRd8E

Even with very easy books, you want kids to be able to tell you what they learned (from a nonfiction
text) or about the beginning, middle, and end (of a fiction text).

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – ©themeasuredmom.com - 17


In the past, I felt very strongly that early readers should be reading much more than decodable
text. I felt this way because many beginning decodable texts sound a lot like this:
Sam sat.
Sam sat on the mat.
The mat is flat.
Sam is sad.

Even if the text is more story-like, there’s not much an author can do with a limited set of phonetic
words. As a result, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for deep discussion after reading decodable
books.

I thought the answer was to have kids read leveled books, which include broader vocabulary that
kids can solve using pictures and context clues.

But you remember how the brain learns to read, right? If we use leveled books that require kids to
use pictures and context (because they haven’t learned the sound-spelling patterns yet), we aren’t
doing them any favors. We may actually be teaching them bad habits which will be hard to break
later on.

USE READ ALOUDS FOR BUILDING VOCABULARY AND TEACHING COMPREHENSION

Before we dive in, let me quickly assert that quality decodable books will have text that makes
sense and a story line that kids can follow. We can and should talk about the story in decodable
text and make sure that kids understand what they read.

But for deeper vocabulary growth and comprehension, we turn to quality read alouds.

Reading aloud to your child has SO many benefits. Here are just a few!

• Reading aloud helps build a stronger relationship between parent and child.
• Listening to books can extend your child’s attention span.
• Certain books may provide a natural time for important (and sometimes difficult) conversations.
• Reading aloud to children instills a love of literature.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 18


• Read alouds can introduce children to wonderful books they wouldn’t have chosen to read on
their own.

• Listening to books increases vocabulary and aids in language development – which means your
child will be a better speaker and writer.

• Reading aloud builds comprehension.

Make your read alouds interactive by asking questions and starting conversations. Don’t go
overboard, of course, but use the questions below to get you started.

As you read aloud to your child, you can …

Encourage him/her to

• pause to ask questions (“I wonder why …”)


• pause to make predictions (“I think that will happen because …”)
• pause to make inferences (“I think she’s sad because …” or “I think this word means …
because …”)
• pause to make connections (“Hey, something like this happened to me when …”)

After you are finished reading aloud, you can ask meaningful questions.

After reading a fiction text:

• Name the characters in the story.


• What does the main character want to happen?
• How did (this character) feel at (this part) of the story?
• How did the character change from the beginning of the story to the end?
• What clues in the picture show you how the character is feeling?
• If you could ask the main character a question, what would it be?
• Point to a clue in the picture that shows the setting of the story.
• Would you like to live where the story takes place? Why or why not?
• What is the story mainly about?
• What is the problem of the story?
How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 19
After reading a nonfiction text:

• What is the text mainly about?


• Name two facts the author wanted you to learn.
• Find a caption or label that helped you understand the text.
• Can you explain … ?
• How would you define … in your own words?
• What did you already know about … before reading this text?
• What were the main events that happened in the story?
• What happened after … ?
• What happened at the beginning / middle / end of the story?
• What in this story reminded you of something from your own life?
• Tell about the story in 2-3 sentences.
• What did you learn from the pictures that you didn’t learn from the words?
• How did the author organize the text to help you understand it?

Chapter 6 – Building Fluency

In Chapter 1, I named three components of fluency.


• reading accurately
• reading at a good rate
• reading with proper expression

The truth is that you don’t need to worry about fluency at first. Brand new readers simply aren’t
ready to read fluently. But as your child starts to sound out words with ease, fluency will start
to come into play.

WAYS TO BUILD FLUENCY

• Read aloud to your child to provide a model of fluent reading.

• Have your child follow (and read) along with audio books that s/he is ready (or almost ready)
to read independently.
How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 20
• Do choral reading, in which you read a familiar text together.

• Do echo reading, in which you read aloud a line of text and have your child read the same line
after you’re finished. This works especially well with funny poetry.

• Have your child do repeated reading. Choose an engaging text no more than 100-200 words
in length. Have your child read through it several times. You might time him/her to see if
reading rate improves.

• Give your child lots of time to read on his/her own. While kids can and should be allowed
access to a variety of books in their free time, make sure your child is giving time each day
to practice reading his/her decodable texts. These reading times can be sprinkled
throughout the day. A total of 20 minutes of practice per day is a good goal.

Chapter 7 – Be a Reading Coach

As your child is reading decodable books, your job is to offer support as needed. Here are prompts
that you can use when your child needs help.

When your child reads a word incorrectly or stops because s/he doesn’t know a word, you might
say …

• I like the way you stopped when that didn’t make sense. Try the tricky word again.
• Sound out the word.
• Do you remember what sound ”th” (ee, sh, oo, etc.) represents?
• Try breaking the word into syllables.
• What sound does this vowel (or these letters) make?
• Cover up the ending and read the first part. Can you add the ending now?
• Move your finger under the word as you say all the sounds.
• Look all the way to the end of the word when you read.
• Cover the beginning/ending. Now what word you see? Put the parts together.
• This is a tricky word; I haven’t taught you how to sound it out yet. The word is _______.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 21


When you are helping your child with comprehension, you might say …

• What have you read about so far?


• What do you already know about ?
• Can you make a picture in your mind as you read this?
• What might happen next?
• Tell about the most important parts.
• What do you think you’ll learn in this book?
• Show me where it says that.
• What might the character be thinking?
• Why do you think the character said that?
• Show me the part that’s confusing.
• How do they solve the problem?
• What’s the most important event in this book?
• Tell me about what happened, in order.
• Tell me about what you read in just one sentence.

When you are helping your child with new vocabulary, you might say …

• What can you do to figure out what that word means?


• Use the picture to help you figure out what the word means.
• Keep reading. See if you can find clues to help you know what that word means.
• What do you think it means? Why?

When you are helping your child improve fluency, you might say …

• Stop at the periods.


• Make your voice show that this is interesting.
• Make your voice sound like the character who is talking.
• Make your voice go up at the end if there’s a question mark.
• Put your words together so that it sounds like you’re talking.
• Read it all smoothly.
• Slow down when you’re reading a lot of information. That will make it easier for you to
remember it.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. –themeasuredmom.com - 22


Chapter 9 – Putting it All Together

Now you’re ready to put the pieces together! Here’s what I suggest.

Each day, plan a reading lesson. If you are teaching a preschooler, follow your child’s lead. 10-15
minutes may be plenty. If you’re teaching a kindergartner or first grader, your lesson may be 20-60
minutes, depending on how long you read to your child and how long h/she reads to you.

SUGGESTED FORMAT FOR BEGINNING READING LESSONS

Give a phonemic awareness lesson. You can choose from the


5-10 minutes
suggested curricula on page 8.

Give a focused phonics lesson. Use the lesson format I shared on


10-20 minutes pages 14-15. Remember that Phonics A to Z, by Wiley Blevins, is a
great guidebook.

Give your child time to practice reading engaging decodable text,


15-20 minutes
both new text and texts s/he has already read.

Build vocabulary and language comprehension by sharing an


20-30 minutes
interactive read aloud.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. –themeasuredmom.com - 23


Conclusion

I hope this guide has given you the confidence to teach your child to read! Be sure to visit my blog for
many accompanying resources.

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I’m just an email away! While I don’t offer coaching services, I try to answer all my messages in as
much detail as time allows. You can reach me here: anna@themeasuredmom.com

Anna Geiger, M.Ed.

How to Teach Your Child to Read, © Anna Geiger, M.Ed. – themeasuredmom.com - 24


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