One of the most important skills for kids to learn is how to read! Although it can seem daunting, you can teach your child to read! Here are lots of resources to guide you step-by-step as you teach reading to pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, and 2nd graders too. From learning your alphabet letters to the sounds each letter a to z makes, sticky vowels to blending to make words, plus lots more. We have lots of free printable phonics worksheets, reading games, and spelling activities to help your students read. Ready to learn how to teach reading? Here you go!
How to Teach Reading
First, when should your child start reading? There are no absolutes for when kids are ready to read. Every child is unique, and that’s okay! As a general rule of thumb experts say most children learn to read by age 6 or 7. Some learner earlier or later, but by the most part children in first or second grade are reading. Studies have also shown that pushing a child to read earlier isn’t necessarily beneficial as they tend to even out in later grades. The most important think is to encourage a love of reading and provide opportunities for reading readiness.
Pre reading skills
Learning to read starts way before kids are actually ready to read. It starts with toddlers and preschoolers learning to recognize our 26 letters, discovering that each letter makes a different sound, understaning tha tsounds make words, enjoying hearing stories, and wanting to read. Read to your chidlren, 30 minutes a day. Not only is this a wonderful bonding routine, but it teaches the importance of reading. They will also learn that books have to be right side up, how we turn pages, develop vocabulary, and learn about a wide variety of topics. All these will set the foundation for reading.
Reading Readiness
- Seeing Words – First kids need to understand that letters form words which can be read to leave a message. as you read signs in your community, point them out to kids. Reading books helps kids learn that letters and words for stories that are interesting to read. This is when we start to teach children to recognize and spell their names. This helps them to see th eimportance. (Here are some fun name activities for kids)Â ceiving emails and personalized ads. There is also an understanding of the order of reading as they watch people read from left to right, and cover to cover.
- Wanting to Read – After years of having signs, books, and birthday cards read to them, they will want to read things for themselves. Fostering a desire to read begins with giving them lots of interactions with letters, words, and stories while making it fun.
- Reading Comprehension – As kids listen to stories, it is important that they understand what they are hearing. In olders students we use book reports to acess reading comprehension, but for younger pre-k students we ask questions. As your kids what happened in the story? Who was the main character? Why was the ___ upset? This will help teach kids to listen for important information and make them more active listeners.
- ABCs – Kids start be recognizing that certain symbols are letters while others are nubmers, shapes, etc. They will learn the 26 letters A-Z. Children will start to notice each letter has a capital and lowercase version. Knowing the difference between uppercase and lower case letters is important.
- Letters Make Sounds – The next important step for a student to learn to read is to understand that each letter makes a particular sound. In it’s most basic concept – when sounds combine together, letters make words. We teach the different beginning sounds, ending sounds, middle sounds, rhyming patterns, blends, etc using phoinics. Mastering phonological awareness means children are able to blend sounds together, decode them and manipulate them. (phoenemic awareness activities kindergarten)
Read to Kids
Make reading a habbit and a special time your children look forward to. Cuddle up on the couch with at least 3 books and spend 30 minutes enjoying a good story. I suggest reading a wide variety of books, always making it fun and low stress!
- Here are some of the best children’s books
- Best alphabet books for learning letters a – z and the sounds they make
- Fun-to-read Rhyming Books to encourage early literature
- Books for Preschoolers with a variety of seasonal books and preschool books based on themes
Learn Your Letters
Teaching kids the upper and lowercase letters doesn’t have to be hard! There are so many fun and simple ways to help kids to learn their abc:
- Hang Alphabet cards on the wall
- Put an Alphabet desk chart at your learning space for a handy reference for learning letter and writing them correctly
- Work on letter recognition activities help kids learn to recognize letters among a sea of similar letters
- Form letters with alphabet playdough mats, tracing letters, ABC snack mats, etc.
- Use no-prep alphabet worksheets
- Make free printable alphabet Letter crafts or these alphabet crowns
- Popcorn letter reversal worksheets
- See More Free Alphabet Printables
Letter Sounds
Pre-k and Kindegarten children are probabaly already familiar with letter sounds as they have seen them on alphabet cards and in alphabet picture cards. But slow down and make sure they know them well. We love using the leap frog letter factory movie for cementing in this concept!
- Letter sound worksheets
- ABC Book with pictures pdf free download
- Free Phonics Coloring Pages
- Letter Sound BINGO
- Peanut Butter and Jelly Match Initial Sounds Activity
- Letter Sound Cards
- Beginning Sounds Worksheets
- Cut and Paste Alphabet Worksheets pdf
- Super cute alphabet crown for kids to color and wear
- Letter Sound Matching Worksheets Activity
- Free Printable Cut and Paste Alphabet Worksheets
- Hot Cocoa Beginning Sounds Activity
- Color, Wear, and Learn A-Z Letter BRACELETES with this alphabet activity
Vowel Activities
Teach kids that some letters are special and are the glue that holds the words together – these letters are called vowels. English vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. Each of these letters have a long sound where they say their name and a short sound. This leap frog talking words factory video was helpful for kids learning their vowels as were these activities:
- Short Vowel Worksheets
- Printable Short Vowel Bingo Game
- Missing Vowel Worksheets clip cards activity
- Vowel Activities – free printable puzzles
- Free Printable Short Vowel Games
- Long Vowel Games Boardgame, freebie
- Cut and Paste Long Vowel Worksheets
- Short Vowel Printables
- Fall Vowel Coloring Pages
- Spring Vowel worksheets for kindergarten
- Simple recognition vowel activities
- Irregular vowels activity
- Short a cvc words cut and paste booklet
- Short a books free
- long and short vowels worksheets – cut and paste activity for the a vowel
- Long A Worksheet Activity
- Phonics long a words clip cards
- Long a sound words worskheet
- short e cvc words cut and paste booklet
- short i cvc words cut and paste mini book
- spelling short i words activity
- short i words emergent reader
- short i words puzzle activity
- short u cvc words cut and paste booklet
- Long U Vowel Words Activity clip cards
Kindergarten Phonics
Now it’s time to start making words by putting together the letter sounds. Start by just adding the missing beginning sound, middle sound, or ending sound.
- Beginning sound
- Free printable Beginning Sounds Game
- Beginning Sound Pictures Cards pdf
- Beginning Sounds Worksheets pdf
- Birds on a Branch Beginning Sound Game
- Clip it Beginning Sounds Activity
- Detective Beginning Sounds Worksheets pdf
- Kite Beginning Sounds Activities
- Animal beginning sound picture cards pdf clip cards
- Peek-a-Bug beginning sounds printable activity
- Winter Beginning Sound Match
- Middle sound
- Middle Sounds in Words clip cards
- Ending sound
- ending sounds activity clip cards
- Clip card final sounds activities
CVC Word Activities
Next up try simple CVC or CVCe words, rhyming words, and word families. These are all great for building a sense of how words are formed, how to sound out words, and gives your students a way to decode written language. See CVC Words Activities Plus don’t mis this nonsense words worksheets
Word Family Activities
Phonics word families are groups of words that have similar letter patterns. By learning just one pattern your child can learn many words at the same time. We have lots of great resources for kids to practice reading and spelling with word family sets! See Word Family Activities!
Rhyming Words for Kindergarten
- These rhyming word worksheet pages are super cute and perfect for practice anytime!
- We have lots of fun rhyming puzzles to choose: simple rhyming words for kindergarten, robot rhyming activities, pencil rhyming word activity, or baseball cvc rhyming words
- These clipcards allow students to practice rhyming pictures
- Work on phonics skills with this rhyming ng words for kids game
- Lights… Camera…. RHYME! Camera Strips Rhyming word families
- Lion Rhyming Words Activities for Kindergarten
- Cooking up Rhymes Kindergarten Rhyming Worksheets with do a dot markers
- Fun Rhyming Games for Pre-k (cute school glue theme)
- No one does rhymes like Dr Seuss! Try our free printable Green Eggs and Ham Worksheets or One Fish, Two Fish Dr Seuss Rhyming Games
- Find the missing words Rhyming worksheets for kindergarten
- Printable Strawberry Rhyming Activities for Kindergarten
- Hey Diddle Diddle rhyming pictures activity
- For your super-hero fan, you’ll love these superhero literacy rhyming mats
- Sneak in some practice this fall with these Pumpkin Rhyming Words or these
- Pumpkin Worksheets and games that work on rhyming
- In December, try these rhming christmas worksheets for kindergarten or these Gingerbread Rhyming Puzzles
- Check out these winter rhyming puzzles to choose from: hot cocoa puzzle winter activities for kindergarten, hat winter theme activity ideas for kinderarten, BUMP boardgame winter activity for kindergarten, cute mitten activities for kindergarten matching rhymes
- Practice rhyming with these fun Valentines cut and paste printables
- Looking for spring rhymes? Try these bunny spring rhyming words worksheets, cute egg puzzles with Easter rhyming words, butterfly printable rhyming games, planting tulips rhyming activity for kindergarten, st patricks day donut rhyming game, rhyming words on these flower worksheets
- or these rainbow activities for kindergarten matching rhyming w0rds
- In summer you’ll love this watermelon rhyming activity these flower rhyming worksheets, this matching rhymes summer activity for kindergarten, beehive Rhyming Games for Preschoolers, or this Bee Clip-it rhyming activity for kindergarten
- or this cute smore Matching Rhyming Words Activity
- Rhyming with Valentine’s Day cut and paste worksheets
- Lots of free rhyming activities for kids
- Super cute rhyming words worksheets pdf
Sight Words
There are some words in the English language that don’t follow the rules – they are called rule breakers. It is extrememely helpful to memorize these words as they make up about 50% of the text that students read. These are words such as I, the, and, are, am, two, etc. There is a set for of suggested list for prek through grade 2. You can see the sight words list here and lots of fun sight words game and activities
Kindergarten Reading
Continuing to read good quality books with complex story lines and good vocabulary is essential for developing not only reading and writing skills, but proper use of the English language. Here are some resources to help you out
- Parts of a Book Coloring Page – is a great way to teach young kids about the parts of a book
- This Library Scavenger Hunt helps kids learn to navigate a library, the Dewey decimal system, book genres, and so much more with this pack of free printable scavenger hunts for kids!
- Bookshelf Reading Log printable pdf – to help encourage kids to read!
- 50 Books for Kindergarten Book List – books for Kindergarteners to read themselves
- Best Read aloud books for kindergarten
👉 Start with How to Teach Reading with reading readiness tips!
👉 Then dive into How to Teach Phonics Step-by-Step
👉 Teaching Creative Writing
👉 Learn English Grammar for Kids
👉 Work on Sight Words for Kids