Of all the things you teach your child, one of the most important will be teaching them to read. We may all joke that the overuse of emojis will turn language into a sort of modern hieroglyphics — but, c’mon, we’re not there yet. For the foreseeable future, we live in a society where literacy serves as a springboard to success.

Being able to read gives way to other important life skills, like driving a car. Breathe, mama… that part comes much later. But learning to read? It’s never too early to start developing those skills. Of course, as is the case with many aspects of raising a child, it can be easier said than done. You might feel overwhelmed just thinking about how to teach your kid to read.

Fortunately, there are a few tried-and-true approaches to teaching literacy. The most important thing to remember before you start, though, is that every child is unique. Although most kids learn to read between the ages of five and seven, your child might master the task earlier or even later.

Give them grace, and give yourself grace, too. There are plenty of programs on the market that promise to help you teach literacy, but there’s no one-size-fits-all handbook to make it happen. Come to the table full of encouragement! And, if you have any concerns about your child’s progress, reach out to your child’s educator or other early education specialists for insight.

How to teach kids to read

Recite nursery rhymes

You may already be doing this but didn’t realize how helpful it actually is. Well, guess what? You’re already off on the right foot. Nursery rhymes and silly little songs call attention to the sounds and syllables in words. They also serve as a wonderful introduction to stories and aid in reading comprehension.

Read together… a lot

There are myriad ways in which reading to your child is beneficial. However, for the sake of this article, we’ll focus on the ones that revolve around reading. Did you know that brain scans have shown hearing stories strengthens the part of the brain associated with mental imagery and narrative comprehension? How about the fact that one study found kids who are read to at least three times a week have “greater phonemic awareness” than kids who are read to less frequently? Reading aloud to your little one also creates positive associations — in other words, they’ll look forward to learning to read, as opposed to fighting you tooth-and-nail.

Focus on the alphabetic principle

Wondering what in the heck the alphabetic principle is? Put simply, it’s the process of connecting letters with their sounds. Letters are the road maps to learning to read. Having said that, mastering the alphabetic principle can be tough for kids. One way to make it more manageable is to take it a Letter at a time. That should help enhance your child’s phonemic awareness — the understanding that words are made up of phonemes, or sound units, and those phonemes have distinct articulatory features. Phonemic awareness is crucial to literacy.

Get hooked on phonics

Okay, so you don’t actually have to buy the Hooked on Phonics program (although it could be helpful!). The gist is that phonics is a key component in reading success. What is phonics? According to Scholastic, it involves the relationship between sounds and their spellings. So, you’ll want to include an explicit explanation of the sound-spelling being taught in your phonics lesson. Follow that up with guided opportunities for your little one to blend (aka sound out) words using the sound-spelling.

Embrace dialogic reading

Trust us; this sounds more complicated than it is! Don’t let the term “dialogic” throw you. “Adults can enhance young children’s language and literacy skills through the use of a strategy known as dialogic reading, which allows children to become participants in telling the story,” Professor Elizabeth Stilwell from Cornell’s Department of Human Development, says on the university’s blog.

“Children are encouraged to engage physically with the book. The adult begins by starting with the pictures, and then moves to the text,” explains Stilwell. “For example, as children look at the cover of the book, the adult may ask the child to predict what will happen in the story.” In fact, dialogic reading entails you asking your child a lot of open-ended questions.

Get ready to repeat (and repeat and repeat)

Anyone who spends any time around kids knows they’re pretty big on repetition — whether it’s asking you to cue up Frozen for the 5,000th time or begging you to push them on the swing “again, again!” There’s a reason for that, though. According to Nemours, repetition helps children master new skills. And in doing so (over and over again), it accelerates their learning. The same proves true with reading. After all, reading involves learning to recognize the same letters and letter combinations.

Break out the sight words

Sight words are pretty much exactly what they sound like: words your child recognizes on sight. Why is this important? WeAreTeachers.com summarizes, “Sight words are words, like come, does, or who, that don’t follow the rules of spelling or the six syllable types. These words have to be memorized because decoding them is really difficult. Students are taught to memorize sight words as a whole, by sight, so that they can recognize them immediately (within three seconds) and read them without having to use decoding skills.” For this reason, you may hear sight words described as the building blocks of literacy.

Flashcards are your friends

These are not your high school SAT flashcards but a simple tool to help your little one memorize and internalize the sight and sound of certain words and letters. Start slow with about five simple three-letter words like “cat,” “pig,” and “dog” written out on cards. Go over them with your child, pointing with your index finger as you slowly pronounce the sound each letter makes to eventually form the word. Then start flashing them to your child. Repetition and patience will be your best friends during this exercise.

Sight words list

A big part of teaching your little ones to read is making sure they’re familiar with their sight words. We’ve gathered a bunch of words from the Reading Kingdom and other educational sites to help your little one get up to speed.

A: a, an, at, are, as, at, and, all, about, after, all, am, are, at, ate

B: be, by, but, been, be, black, brown, but,

C: can, could, called, came

D: did, down, do, did, do

E: each, eat, egg

F: from, first, find, for, four

G: get, good, gift

H: he, his, had, how, has, her, have, him, have, he

I: in, I, if, into, is, it, its, into

J: just, just, joy

K: know, kite, kit

L: like, long, little, like

M: my, made, may, make, more, many, most, must

N: not, no, now, new

O: or, one, of, out, other, over, only, on, our

P: people, please, pretty

R: ran, ride, rid

S: said, she, some, so, see, saw, say, soon

T: the, to, they, this, there, them, then, these, two, time, than, that, their, that, there, too

U: up, use, under

V: very

W: was, with, what, were, when, we, which, will, would, words, where, water, who, way

Y: you, your

Quotes About Reading

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – C.S. Lewis

“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” – Descartes

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” – Mortimer J. Adler

“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.” – Diane Duane

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” – Margaret Fuller

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”– Charles W. Eliot

“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.”– Carl Sagan

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”– Neil Gaiman

“Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.”– E.B. White