Learning How to Read: First Books

So when my 3-year-old came up to me and said "Mommy, I want to learn how to read!" I eagerly started our lessons. She learned her letters and sounds already, so I figured some phonetics lessons and will be on our way to early reader books.

I could not have been more wrong. Most of the common words used in stories don't always follow the simple sound rules. "Me" is "M-ee" not "M-eh". "You" is "Y-oo" not "Y-oh-uh". And so on.

A preschool teacher brought me in the direction of "sight words" - the most frequently used words in the English language that kids should memorize. Sounded easy enough, but going through the words was boring and tedious for both me and my child. I could tell she was fast losing interest and knew I had to involve her more in the reading process.

I was also advised to find books with rhyming words. I browsed through the large selection in both National Bookstore and Power Books, but all the shelves of Pre-Level and Level 1 reader books still seemed to complicated for my daughter. The closest ones I found that were easy for her to grasp were Dora's So Many Bananas and Mickey Mouse's Are We There Yet? Where were the simple "See Jack run" and "See Jill play" books from my day?

Finally, I stumbled upon two great resources for free books for first time readers:

http://www.clarkness.com/Single%20Page%20Stories%20page%201.htm

http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/printable_booklets.html

While my daughter is disappointed that they're not real books, I finally saw progress (and by the way her eyes sparkled, she did too!) as she read through the 1-page stories all on her own. It's slow going, but so were the lowercase letters, writing, and cutting in the beginning...so I'm still confident that we'll get the reading down pat too!

Incidentally, another great find for me is Disney School Skills: Sight Words which so far, has successfully taught her to recognize the words for the days of the week and colors.

Books For Tots: Brainy Baby

Get a good grasp of the basics with the Brainy Baby series.  These board books provide large, colorful images that introduce your child to the world of numbers, animals, shapes, colors, and letters.

When I saw the word "baby" in the title, I imagined my little one would immediately take to these kinds of books.  It wasn't exactly love at first sight for my baby.  I learned that mere images weren't enough to amuse her and had to inject funny noises and animal sounds to make it more interesting.  I also taught her that books were not toys - she could not fold, toss, or step on her books.  Over time she came to respect and love these tiny tomes.  These days a trip to the toy store makes her face light up, but a trip to the bookstore - ah, now there's a treat that can convince her to take a nap, eat her vegetables, or visit the doctor.

My baby now has two shelves dedicated to her in our mini library (my husband and I are quite the bookworms ourselves) and is close to occupying a third.  And it all started with a little series called Brainy Baby.  My daughter just turned 2 and has already memorized the contents of these books, but we still use them regularly to refresh her skills.

You can purchase a set of 4 board books at Toy Kingdom.  A set comes in a bag with handle, making it convenient to lug around.  It also makes it very presentable as a baptismal, birthday, or Christmas gift. ;)