Worried Your Child Isn’t Reading Yet?
What can you do if you’re worried that your child isn’t reading yet? Give your son or daughter a solid foundation for reading based on age-appropriate phonics skills.
Phonics alone doesn’t account for every variation in spelling for kids learning to read, but each phonics skill learned and practiced is a building brick for your child to become a strong, confident reader.
So, if you’re worried your child isn’t reading yet, lean into beginning phonics skills. Start with alphabet letters names and sounds.
Then, add and ‘-s’ to the ends of words, such as ‘bits’ and ‘pets’, where the ‘s’ makes the /s/ sound. Then, teach them CVC words with ‘-s’ at the end, such as ‘buns’ and ‘fins’, where the ‘s’ does NOT make the /s/ sound, but the /z/ sound. YES, ‘s’ at the end of a word can say /s/ or /z/!
When you’re worried your child isn’t reading yet, the next phonics skills to teach is simple digraphs (sh, ch, th, wh, ph).
When I was teaching 1st grade, I would ask my students, “Girls and boys, which letter in the alphabet spells /ch/? At first, you could see the gears turning in their little minds. Then, a few grins, as they realized their teacher had just asked them a trick question.
After teaching your beginning or struggling reader digraphs (two letters that make one sound), teach the ‘superhero e’ or ‘bossy e’. After that, teach long vowel teams for the long vowels a, e, i, o and u.
R-controlled vowels come next. So, if you wonder why your child is still spelling ‘barn’ as ‘brn’, it’s because they have a phonics gaps in HOW to spell words with r-controlled vowels.
If you’re worried your child isn’t reading yet, START with the above phonics skills. This complete printable K-2 Phonics Curriculum will give you the phonics skills you need. No more feeling worried that your child isn’t reading yet!
