The young child can recognize words before he can physically write them. His eyesight isn’t quite 20/20 yet, though, so all words should be written fairly large. If you’re sitting really close to him, two inches is probably okay. Smaller than that, and you’re making it much harder for him than it needs to be, and may cause him eye-strain.

Children Can Shape Letters With Playdough Before They Can Write Them

Next, teach him to recognize his name. Print his name in large block letters – one capital letter, and the rest lower-case letters, the way he will see it written in school. Do not write it all in caps. Put his name on his bedroom door, at his place at the table, where he hangs his coat – any place you can think of putting it. You can start teaching him to read other words, too, if you like – any word that he finds interesting- print them in large letters on 4×6 index cards.

Next, have him roll playdough snakes and have him form the letters that make his name. You can print his name on cardboard and let him “trace” the name with playdough snakes. Later, let him make his name without the tracing card.

Spritz shaving cream on a cookie sheet, and let him draw his name in the cream. Supervise him, if you don’t want shaving cream everywhere, but this activity may amuse him for 15 to 20 minutes, and it’s educational, too. I let my granddaughter do similar supervised educational activities at the kitchen table while I do dishes or fix a meal. She’s having fun, she’s close by, and I know what she’s up to.

There are Many Ways A Child Can Practice Writing the Alphabet that is More Productive than Worksheets

Let him fingerpaint his name, using a large sheet of paper and his favorite color of paint.

Let him draw his name in wet sand or mud.

Let him try to write his name with sidewalk chalk.

Finally, you can print off his name at a website like Kid Zone, and let him trace his name over and over. If you slip the paper in a page protector or laminate it, and get a dry erase marker, he can practice it and wipe it clean to reuse.

He’ll eventually graduate from dry-erase markers, to thick crayons, to pencils. But don’t rush him to writing with a pencil too soon. Let him develop the coordination first, and experience success at every step along the way.

Lorelei

For further reading, you may wish to read:
How to Teach Your Baby to Read
Reading Readiness
Play Areas for Encouraging Creativity

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Photo Credits:
Top: http://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/ / CC BY 2.0
Middle:http://www.flickr.com/photos/whgrad/ / CC BY 2.0
Bottom: http://www.flickr.com/photos/plindberg/ / CC BY 2.0

Write first words in large letters in red ink on sturdy posterboard. Think really Large!  Like six inches!  This is because baby vision is not 20-20, and you want them to be able to see it well.  And they are more attracted to red than black.  Try “mommy” and “daddy” for the first words, as these are often the first words a baby learns to say.

Step one:
Show the “mommy” card quickly and set it down.  Play with your baby.  Do patty cake, or kissy games, or “this little piggy”.  Then flash the card again and say clearly, “This says mommy”.  Set the card down and play for another couple of minutes.  Repeat one more time, then the lesson is over.  You spend only a few minutes total, but show the card three times.  Repeat later in the day, several times a day, for a week.

Step two:
Do the same routine the next week with the word “daddy”.

Step three:
The third week is a big challenge.  You flash one card and ask your baby what it says.  If he says the word correctly, praise him!  Get real excited.  Jump up and down, clap your hands, kiss him profusely.  This is a big deal!  But if he is wrong, just go back to step one and begin again.  He’s a baby!  Give him a break!

Step four:
Once your baby recognizes Mommy and Daddy correctly, you can move on to more words.  Now the letters can be slightly smaller, five inches, I think.  It’s been 26 years since I read the book.  I don’t remember the next sequence of vocabulary words taught, either, although I don’t suppose it really matters.  You could teach words as your baby learns to speak them.  If “highchair” is part of his vocabulary, then make a word flashcard for it.

That’s the Glenn Doman approach, in a nutshell.

Teach Your Baby To Read

baby-math

baby-knowledge

superb

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He now has other books available, as well.  “How to teach your baby Math” and “How to teach your baby to be physically superb” really caught my eye.  I’ll be ordering them soon, and posting a book review of them as well.

If you’re really interested in early reading, you might want to check out this website. I just discovered it this morning, but I’ve emailed them and asked for a free demo so I can learn more about it. I’ll let you know what I learn! The demo is free, though, so if you don’t want to wait, go ahead and order it yourself.

I think teaching a baby is exciting, but the most important lesson is not reading, or math, or physical fitness. I think the most important thing gained from these activities is the close bond you build with your child.

For further reading:
Early Reading, Pros and Cons
Reading Readiness
Great Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers
My Book Store

Photo Credits
Top: http://www.flickr.com/photos/futurestreet/ / CC BY 2.0

First off, if you want to raise a reader, you must be one!  Your actions really do speak louder than words.  The toddler and preschool child is eager to be just like you.  If you swear when you stub your toe, you can expect to hear those words coming from your child’s mouth at the most inopportune moments.  If your child often sees you in front of the mirror fixing your hair, she may want her hair fixed, too.  Let your child watch you brush your teeth. Hand her a toothbrush and she will try to copy your actions.  This “show and do” method of teaching is so simple!  How else do you think your baby learned to speak in the first place?

Read to Your Child Often, Not Just at Bedtime

Visit the library weekly.  Many libraries have beautiful children’s sections.  Ours is filled with sturdy preschool toys, puzzles, games, kitchen sets, play houses, and more.  Little ones can play while their parent selects picture books for them.  They even have book sets to check out – a bag of books, puzzles and toys centered on a theme, such as “pets” or “music”. I love the children’s library, but more importantly, so does my granddaughter.

Next, teach your child to recognize her own name.  Do just the first name, or the first, middle and last- especially if there are likely to be other children in school with the same first name.  Print it out, and say it.  Write it on a card for your child to keep in her pocket.  Label every piece of artwork she makes with her name in the corner.  Put it in the upper left corner, so she learns to read from top to bottom and from left to write.  Write her name on all her outside toys if you take them to a public park or playground.  Write her name inside her clothing, especially jackets and outer wear that she might remove and leave behind.  Write her name on a peg where you want her to hang her jacket, if appropriate.  Write her name on a placemat at the table.

And finally, teach your child to write her own name.  Have her form crude letters with ropes of playdough.  Let her draw the letters in wet sand or shaving cream.  Write her name with glue on cardboard and shake colored salt or sand into the glue.  After it dries, she can trace the letters with her fingers.  And when she can hold a pencil or crayon well, help her learn to write her name.

Never to Young to Learn

If your child enjoys that sort of game, move on to ending sounds.  This is very helpful for the child who doesn’t pronounce the last sound of words.  That is, by the way, not uncommon, but do not let it continue.  If your child says “dow” for down, or “uh, uh” for “up”, then you need to fix that.  Over-enunciate the final sounds.  Pretend you do not understand.  Say something like, “Do you mean dowN?  Downuh?  Say “DOWN”.  You can expect your child to rebel a little, but before long she will be listening for, and pronouncing the final sounds of her words, as well.  If not, then you may want to have your child’s hearing tested.  It is not a bad idea to have both hearing and vision tested sometime before kindergarten.

Readiness for kindergarten and the school experience is more than just letter recognition.  Other skills your child should master include tying her shoes, toileting by herself including washing her hands, cutting with scissors, holding a pencil correctly, able to sit reasonably still on a chair for a minimum of fifteen minutes, listen to and follow directions, and get along with other children.

For further reading:
How to Teach Your Baby to Read
Early Reading Pros and Cons
Great Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers
My Book Store

Some of the pros include:

• good readers make good students.  They are far more likely to stay in school than poor readers
• the “Matthews Effect” – good readers get better, poor readers get poorer over time
• the opportunity for learning languages begins to close at age four
• reading is the single most important skill a child will ever learn
• current methods of teaching reading are NOT working for millions of students
• teaching reading earlier may eliminate most reading problems according to a panel of reading specialists and early childhood educators
• children who are taught to read earlier enjoy reading more than children who learn after age five
• children who can read are seldom bored
• early readers tend to excel in other areas of study as well

Some of the cons include:

• poor eyesight.  There is little current study being done on this topic, but former research suggested that early reading was strongly related to vision problems in children.
• early childhood is the time to learn about the world through movement.  To be outside, touching, tasting, smelling, experiencing.  Learning from a book may rob the young child of these important stages
• teaching a young child to read is time-consuming.  Some studies suggest it is far better to delay reading until the child is ten years old or more
• not all children experience success at an early age.  Is it right to set a young child up for failure?

As you can see, the pros really do outnumber the cons.  When I tried to google for “cons” to write this article, it was very hard to come up with any.  And the definition of “early reading” has changed!  The articles on the web are not talking about teaching a four or five year old to read, but teaching a baby!

I taught my firstborn to read when she was two years old.  I read a paperback book from the library called “How to Teach Your Baby to Read” by Glenn Doman.   I wrote out the suggested vocabulary words on large sheets of posterboard, and worked with not just my young daughter, but three of the four children I babysat.  Tammy caught on quickly, and I have pictures of her “teaching” another baby as she played with the flashcards.

My problem with Tammy was probably my fault. Glenn Doman’s method is the sight-word method at first.  You teach your baby a lot of vocabulary words, until they are reading their first book.  Then you teach them phonics.  I skipped that step. She had a little difficulty when she went to public school.  She was a very active, kinesthetic learner.  She made quick decisions, without much thought.  For example, she read “comfortable” as “conference table”.  Neither word should be in a primary reader, but it was something she read incorrectly.  If I had followed the rest of Glenn Doman’s method, she would have been spared this.  However,  when I pulled my children out of public school and homeschooled them, I was able to teach her phonics then.  She went on to graduate with honors from public highschool, and was on the national dean’s list in college.  She is my only child (out of four) to wear glasses, though.  She is very near-sighted.  I wear glasses, and I was also reading before kindergarten.

I did not teach  my middle child, Annika, to read early.  I tried at age four, but she wasn’t interested.  I tried again at five, and at six.  She had no interest.  At age seven, she was suddenly ready. I used the “Sing, Spell, Read & Write” program, and she went through it in three weeks.  She went from not being able to read, to reading at a fifth grade level in three weeks.  She is now 23 years old, and reads a thick novel in about two days.

As for those ridiculous little worksheets so popular in preschools and kindergartens, you’ll not find them in my lesson plans.  They may teach something.  They teach following directions or cutting and pasting on the line.  But they are mostly worthless.  A child will not learn that this shape “T” is the letter “t” and that it makes the “tuh, tuh” sound and that “truck” and “toy” start with the “tuh, tuh” sound by doing a worksheet.  Only the child who already knows the letter T can do the worksheet correctly, and why waste his time drilling on something he already knows?  There are so many better ways to teach a young child than with worksheets.

Check out my units, A is for Apple, or B is for Bugs! for a week’s worth of fun activities that teach letter sounds and recognition. Then, take a break and spend a week on the color red. For more fun ideas, visit my Lessons page, or better yet – subscribe to my blog, and never miss another update again.

We’ll explore some of those ways in future posts.  So stay tuned!

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Jessica Merz