Good Books and Other Tips for Teaching a Child to Read at Home

Learning to read is one of the most exciting things. 

I taught first grade and one of the main things I loved about it was seeing so many kids become readers. I loved witnessing the excitement and incredible growth around that (and I had similar feelings about seeing kids that age become writers). There's a metamorphosis in kids, when they realize they are-- finally, sometimes suddenly-- a reader, when they've cracked the code and feel the special new confidence that comes with the ability to decipher the world around them-- books and so much more. It was exhilarating to see it in my own daughter this year in our homeschool setting. 

At the beginning of this year, M was 5 1/2. She could name most of the letters reliably, and she knew many of the sounds they made. She recognized a few words on sight and could write her own name and sometimes a couple of other names (Mommy, Daddy). She was well-placed as a beginning kindergartner, but she was not yet a reader. 

...Now, she is a reader. We can no longer spell the words we don't want her to hear in our conversations. She constantly catches us off guard by asking, "Why does it say-- ?" as she reads food packages, our to-do lists, road signs, and everything else. She insists on reading some of the questions herself when we play a game. It all happened so quickly, and it's amazing the effect all of these new abilities have on a now-six-year-old's sense of self. 

The Ingredients for Learning to Read

There is a lot of research on the methods for teaching reading skills. I think a few things are most important:

• Regular, brief lessons in letters and sounds, in an intentional sequence: go from easiest and most common sounds/spelling rules (e.g. short vowels and consonants) to those more difficult and/or less frequent (e.g. silent e rule, ing/ang endings). 
• Teach them to recognize by sight words like the, are, and is-- words they'll come across frequently but that often can't be sounded out. Spell them out loud, use flashcards, write them in the air, etc. 
• Read books aloud regularly and talk about them. 
• Writing time, for kids to tell their own stories and learn to put them on paper, with pictures and words.
• Reading time itself, to put appropriate books (not too hard or too easy) in kids' hands and let them practice, with support in how to tackle tricky words and other strategies.   

All of the above heavily supports learning to read. But the moment of putting it all together and really becoming a reader isn't a formula. I see learning to read as partly magic; it's a small miracle within each kid as to when and how it all clicks for them. 

Below is how we approached reading time itself. 

How we Approached Reading This Year

Keep it Cozy

We don't do worksheets or drill sounds during reading time. Reading time is for books. We sit on the couch most days. She reads me two or three books, then I usually read her one or two (at any level, just for the sake of reading aloud) as well. I might read a book to her on a topic we are learning about in science, or a great new library book or something else. She looks forward to being read to probably as much as I like to hear her read to me. 

There are ways to jointly read her books, which we did a lot early in the year, and still do sometimes just for fun, or when the book or the mood calls for it:

• Alternate: I read a page, she reads a page, and so on
• Echo: I read the book first-- either the whole way through or one page at a time-- then she reads it 

Logistics

Most academics we fit in in the morning when we are freshest and most energetic. But reading works in the morning or afternoon because it's not too demanding (see above). I try to start with a tip or reminder that I know is relevant for her at the moment, like: remember to stop when there's a period; if it doesn't make sense try again; make sure the word matches your guess from the picture. Other than that, I just have her choose what she wants to read and we read. I listen and follow along. If she gets stuck and asks for help, or plows ahead with mistakes, then I remind her of another strategy to try. 

For a lot of the year, we had two baskets she could easily draw from: "Working On" for a selection of books I thought were currently about right for her that she hadn't read yet or couldn't read very smoothly yet and "Can Read!" for books she'd mastered. It was nice having a spot she could go to for books she already knew any time she wanted to read to her dad or anyone else. Recently, we've started to outgrow this basket system as what she can read has expanded so widely so that she can select books from all over our house. 

Good Books for Kids Learning to Read

In the classroom I had a whole selection of books to suit kids' different interests and ability levels. But at home, I don't have all that to draw from. In the beginning, it was a little tricky at times to figure out how to get our hands on books that were easy enough for M to practice with-- not to mention the hope that they also be engaging (which many beginner texts are not). But we found things for her to read, without buying a lot, by using the library and some free apps. Essentially, we followed a path from emergent reading (see below) to phonetic reading to patterned books and then to a great variety of options. 

These are the books and sources I've found affordable, accessible, and helpful for a child learning to read at home. While some overlapped, I listed them here in approximately the sequence in which we used them. I am sure there are other good options out there as well but this list got us through!

1. Start with Labels around the House

The night before the first day of homeschool, I taped index cards on various things in our house-- "chair," "piano," etc. The moment M came downstairs, all bright-eyed and eager for the first day of kindergarten, she noticed one, and then another and another. She was full of exclamations: "Why is this here? What does it say?!" We didn't read them to her, but told her to look at it. What would make sense? What did she think it said? Did she have any guesses based on where it was or by looking at the beginning of the word? She quickly figured out some obvious ones but others took more time and I let her puzzle over them, like "light." She immediately thought, "switch" and I said, "Great idea!...But this word starts with /lllll/." Whenever she figured one out triumphantly, we'd say, "Wow! You're a reader!" and you could almost see her self esteem grow. I'm so glad I started our year that way because I feel like it set the tone for her school year. It gave her a sense that she was so capable already and just had to work to unlock the world around her. It was a way to get her to really start to look at words, and made her feel the thrill of being a reader. (And it was the moment I really understood why every kindergarten classroom I've ever been in has labels all over on things like the sink, calendar, and table.)  

2. Respect the Emergent Reading Stage

This is the stage when kids understand that a picture book tells a story. They have heard stories lots of times. They know the words hold meaning but they can't read most of them yet. They can, however, sit down with a known, favorite book, and turn the pages and tell the story aloud, pretend reading. They won't be saying the words exactly as they are written. But they are reading, in their own, emerging way. Rather than rushing past this stage or forcing them to focus on the words, honor this stage for what it is and work with it. 

I found ways to encourage this type of reading for a while. I asked M to try to say more details to go with each page-- so she wasn't just flying through the book providing a cursory summary. If it was a new book she could look closely at the pictures and try to tell the story by using all the clues they provided. This was a little freeing to a beginning reader to be told she could read this way. I think made her feel a lot more confident early on to feel she could "read" any book off our shelves. If it was a story she'd heard before, I could also ask her to try to sound like a grown-up reader and use words like the author used in her telling of the story-- words like gasped and suddenly and worried. It was okay if she didn't know exactly what the words said yet; she could still read by doing the best she could and using a reading voice. By allowing her to work with great books she loved right off, rather than flimsy miniature early readers which kids seem to know aren't real books, it propelled her into the reading world with more engagement. So the strategy for a while was essentially: fake it till you make it. But it worked and was a lot of fun. 

3. Primary Phonics

After the emergent reading stage, we worked with some phonetic readers. I had had success with the Primary Phonics series with some students, especially those for whom it is hard learn and keep straight letters and sounds. Kids like that don't need tricky language in books at first to trip them up. They need controlled texts-- books that have only the words they've learned by sight (e.g., the) and words that consist of sounds they have learned so far. The first book in Set 1 is Mac & Tab, about a cat and a mouse. It consists entirely of words like a, and, the and 3-letter words with only the vowel "a." The pictures are black and white line drawings and they are old stories. But it's empowering for kids to open up a book that follows the rules, that they can sound out, all the way through, even if it takes a while. This was real reading for the first time. 

4. Bob Books

These are even easier than the Primary Phonics set in a way, in that they begin with only truly decodable words. The first book in Set 1: Beginning Readers never includes even the word the, but is made up entirely of the letters "m," "a," "t," and "s." But in other ways these were a little trickier, especially for a kid who has been read to and knows how books should sound. Herein lies the tricky balance for books for early readers; in order to have such a controlled, decodable book, some pages sound awkward. (The first page of book 1 says simply, "Mat." Another page says, "Mat sat. Sam sat.") But when sounding out was hard and reading was slow going, she could read a couple of these little tiny books and feel successful.     

5. Scholastic Box of First Little Readers

When M started being able to branch out a bit from the decodable books above, I found this Scholastic set of patterned stories, in which every page has the same sentence that only changes by a word or two and the pictures give big clues. It makes sense to teach kids explicitly that many books (for early readers) have a pattern, and to look for and identify that pattern to make reading easier. Once they are comfortable with the idea of a text pattern, this type of book can introduce them to more interesting vocabulary. With 25 little books for around $11, this set was a bargain. The boxes are available in various levels, marked by a letter. We got guided reading level C. On Amazon there are pictures of the insides of some of the books so you can quickly get a sense of what they are like if you aren't sure of the right level for your kid. I'd suggest buying a level that feels like a little bit of a stretch at the time, because they will only be at any given level for a finite period of time. Even with the brevity of the text, this series manages to be a little silly and M enjoyed the humor.

6. Board Books

We have a vast collection of board books from when our kids were little. I realized at one point that there were plenty that M could now read herself and I started culling them from our bookshelves. Board books, made for babies, consisting of one word on each page, were great. Some others are rhyming or patterned in some other way that make them easy to tackle for new readers. The familiarity in the fact that we had read these books to my daughter hundreds of times since infancy helped her be more successful with some of them as well. Some good ones we used were Freight Train by Donald Crews, Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett, I Like Fruit by Lorena Siminovich, and Mommies Say Shhh! by Patricia Polacco. In general the ones with the fewest words were best at first, and later she could access others.   

7. Repetitive, Predictable Texts, Including ABC Books

Up until this stage, I had had a hard time finding books from the library (other than more board books) that were simple enough for M to read. But once she could handle a sentence or so on a page and was working with patterned texts, the library became a rich resource for her reading materials. I looked for ABC books, because those are essentially labeling books. I also looked for anything patterned or repetitive, like the classic Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? by Bill Martin Jr. and others like Silly Sally by Audrey Wood, I Went Walking by Sue Williams, and Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley. I found if I did a Google search for "repetitive picture books" or "picture books with predictable text" or "rhyming picture books," I got lots of lists of ideas, then I would borrow some of those titles from the library.   

8. Kahn Academy Kids App

I don't get a lot of apps for the kids, but Kahn Academy Kids is one of the best ones I've found, school-wise. It was free. We put it on our iPad. It plays constant background music, but you can turn off the sound. It offers academically-oriented games too. But we got it for the "Library" part of the app, where there is a good selection of books. The books are under different categories, and we most utilized the Early Readers section. When your child taps on a book, it opens with the option to "read to me" or to "read by myself." We always chose the latter when we were using the app to practice reading. The early readers range from simple decodable stories to more challenging, but they do follow a sequence that makes sense as kids get stronger at reading. Most of the early readers are fiction stories about the same set of characters, which M found engaging. They were a perfect combination of decodable words, patterned text, and interesting stories and characters. And, free! 

(For general listening enjoyment or read aloud, the app also includes some great published nonfiction, like the great Blastoff Readers Series about animals, vehicles, and science topics, and some National Geographic Young Explorer books.)  

9. Epic App (or Epic Online)

A lot of teachers had their students use Epic for remote schooling. We got a free trial to Epic at one point and since then I have been paying the monthly fee (less than $10). It's unpredictable what titles they have, but there are a lot of books available for various ages. There are both Epic originals (not always so good) and lots of great, real published books. Each of my kids have a profile and the app notes their interests and suggests books for them, and keeps a record of which books they've read. 

As far as using it for M for learning to read, we've mostly done one of two things. One is, we look for "Collections" of books that teachers or others have made. These are groupings of books based on a theme or level. We found a Collection called Fiction Level A/B Books and another called Ready to Read. Important note: the leveling on Epic does not seem to follow a consistent standard. Plenty of the supposedly A/B books were harder than that, but it was a good start. The other thing we learned to do is to go to Search, search for a topic, then when the search results come up, narrow them by clicking on the Reading Level filter at the top and choose a level range. It's a range rather than a particular level, but it at least loosely groups books by difficulty. M would choose a book that looked interesting and then we'd look at it together to see if it looked just right for her or not. (The more broad the initial search term you use, the better, because I haven't found a way to simply search for books by level.)   

10. After that, the World...

By the time kids can read beyond predictably patterned books, the world of reading has opened up and it's less about finding specific titles or series. There are so many good series and options for a young reader who can really read-- Henry & Mudge, Little Critter, Elephant and Piggie, and lots more. One thing worth noting, though, is that if you set out to buy books marketed as early readers, some of the labeling can be tricky. Leveling systems are not consistent from one publisher to another, and the terms can be deceiving. For example, we've enjoyed books from the I Can Read! series, at the "My First" level, but M wasn't reading those until recently. They aren't decodable, there isn't a defined pattern-- and yet it's listed as the earliest level. I think a good rule of thumb is, rather than being tied to levels or to a particular publisher, to just flip through a book. Check out first and foremost how many words are on a page; fewer = easier reading level. But also check how easily most of the words could be sounded out, or whether the words of the story follow a predictable pattern, because those things make books easier too. 

Don't be afraid to let young readers try something you think is too hard. For one thing, it's good for kids to learn to recognize for themselves when a book is easy or too hard. But once kids put together the puzzle of reading, they sometimes grow by leaps and bounds. You may be surprised by how much they can read if you casually test them from time to time, asking them to read first one book without any help, then another more difficult one if that goes well, and so on, just to see what they are capable of at a point in time.    

Other Notes

Using the Pictures

Children's books have pictures for a reason. They support the text and help with comprehension and figuring out words that would be too difficult without them. Learning to read means learning to put together all sorts of information-- what the letters in the word itself look like, the context of the sentence and whether it make sense and sounds right, and the picture too. Pictures are engaging and supply details and richness beyond what an early level book can provide in the text alone. Kids using the pictures to figure out a word isn't cheating, but rather a part of being a young reader. 

On Memorization

Sometimes parents are concerned that their kids are just memorizing when they can fly through a book. And sometimes it is true that they know a book so well they literally have it memorized and claim they can "read" it without even looking. When this happens, of course, it makes sense to let them know that that's a neat trick, but it isn't really reading because grown-up reading means looking at the words too. 

But there is no harm in memorizing a book and it can be a good thing at a certain stage. When you have a book memorized, you need to match what you have in your head to the actual text on the page. By doing both at once-- the fluid, rote memorization, and the looking and following along with their eyes-- they are internalizing story language, memorizing what certain words look like, learning new vocabulary well. A memorized book is also an accomplishment. It makes reading fun, and is a nice contrast to the hard work of getting through a brand new book. Memorization allows them to practice other, higher level reading skills like voices for different characters, and fluency and phrasing, while their brain is not entirely consumed by sounding out and figuring out as they go. They shouldn't cling to only books they have memorized, but as part of the learning to read repertoire, it's a good and healthy thing.  

...

I'll end with an anecdote that reminded me how memorization can be a good thing. M wanted to learn all the words to a certain favorite song from the movie Frozen ("Into the Unknown"). So I found and printed the lyrics for her. I imagined I would read these to her or with her because it was a lot of words, but no-- she wanted those lyrics for herself. She read them with voice and expression, following along, efficiently figuring out tough words because she already had big portions of this song memorized. She had a good sense of the language and what it should sound like, so she was able to match that knowledge to the print and consequently to read plain text on a page that would have been beyond her otherwise. 

The lyric reading I witnessed is a reminder, too, of the impact that reading out loud (and talking, for that matter) to kids has on learning to read. The more stories they hear, the more language they know, the more they know how stories tend to go, and the easier a time they have filling in the gaps when it's their time to read themselves. 

Video clip reading/singing "Into the Unknown" (can't resist):