How to teach reading in english kids

10 Best Websites to Help Your Kids Read in English

Reading in English is one of the best ways to build your child’s vocabulary. It can also be a good family activity to do together. The websites below will give you free resources to help make reading with your child fun, as well as educational. Let’s take a look!

Why should you read in English with your child?

Childhood is the best time to start learning a second language. A positive early experience with English often leads to a better connection with the language and improved fluency in later life. For kids, speaking and listening are easier skills to develop than reading and writing. However, learning to read in English from a young age will help your child to develop a wider vocabulary and a better understanding of structure (grammar).

Children’s books are written and illustrated to be fun, engaging and easy to understand. Connecting a new piece of vocabulary or grammar to a story or poem can make it easier for a child to remember. Reading interesting stories doesn’t feel like hard work or “study” so this is good preparation for more formal English lessons later.

Reading together with your child can help them take more of an interest in it. If they struggle to read by themselves, then listening to you read a story in English will still help them to practise their listening skills and build their vocabulary. You might even find a new favourite story together!

The recommended websites below are a mix of British and American resources. Most include videos or audiobooks, which you can use with your child to practise listening and matching the sounds of words to how they are written. All of these kids’ reading websites are free to access and many of them offer downloadable ebooks!

Top 10 websites for reading in English with your kids

1. The Story Place

This is a superb website for reading online because instead of giving you an ebook, its stories are in the form of interactive games! The story appears onscreen at the same time as it is read aloud, and you can interact with the story while it is being told. There are also bonus games to play afterwards, song videos, and printable activities. The site is built for young children, including pre-schoolers who are just learning their letters for the first time. New stories are added to this website regularly.

Each interactive story comes with at least one game, two songs, and a printable activity sheet to help your child practise new vocabulary that they have learnt during the story.

Try the Preschool Activity Library to find stories and activities based around your child’s interests – for example: colours, trains or their favourite animal! You can also look into the Literacy page for top tips on “raising a reader”!

We Enjoyed: I Will Not Take A Bath is a very funny little story about a baby who doesn’t want a bath until he has his favourite toys – why not practise telling the story with your child’s favourite bath-time toys?

Suggested Age Range: 3-6 years

2. Starfall

Starfall is an online resource build to help children learn to read. It offers interactive books for preschool children and young schoolchildren, each book is built around practicing particular letters and sounds. There are also seasonal stories – such as Pumpkin for Halloween or Snowman for Christmas – and simple maths exercises in English!

There are also lots of free resources for teaching your child at home, including printable worksheets, flashcards and posters. Some resources are only available to teachers in the USA and Canada, but there is more than enough material for you to use when teaching your kids English at home!

Try the Talking Library to practise reading and listening to famous stories – or even learn a bit of Shakespeare! Make sure you check out the Parent-Teacher Center for printables, advice, and even lesson plans!

We Enjoyed: The It’s Fun to Read section has some fun tongue-twisters to try! How fast can you say them all?

Suggested Age Range: 3-9 years

3. Oxford Owl

Oxford Owl is a British website providing free ebooks, learning activities, and workbooks for children. You have to sign up to the site to gain full access, but creating an account is completely free and gives you access to a library of hundreds of books and structured learning resources! Sounds good, right?

All resources are categorised by age, making it easy to find stories that should interest your child. Activities and workbooks are also divided in this way, making it very easy to navigate what’s best for your son or daughter!

Try the phonics guide, which is written to help parents understand and teach English phonics to their children! If you want to practise writing as well as reading with your child, the Activity Books section includes a workbook for proper handwriting. This is especially useful if your native language doesn’t use the Roman alphabet!

We Enjoyed: The Winnie the Witch books are a fun series of stories about an inept witch, and have a lot of lively illustrations that are great for younger children to explore and talk about!

Suggested Age Range: 4-11 years

4. Storyline Online

Storyline Online is a great site for finding free videos of writers, teachers and sometimes celebrities reading children’s storybooks aloud. The videos come with fun visuals from the story as well! Each video also has free activity guides for both teachers and parents. These will give you plenty of ideas on how to discuss the story with your child, and games you can play afterwards.

The website’s blog also contains links to many other useful resources. Storyline is run by the award-winning SAG-AFTRA Foundation, and they are linked to a huge network of excellent literacy resources for children!

Try listening to a story one day, and then the next day too, watching it again with the sound off and the captions on. See if your child can imitate how the reader of the story talks! Don’t forget to look at the Activity Guides below each video to find ways to get your child thinking about the story they have just heard.

We Enjoyed: Library Lion is a cute, funny story that teaches children about how to behave politely in a library and the importance of helping other people.

Suggested age range: 3-12 years

5. Free Kids’ Books

This one is, quite simply, exactly what it says on the tin – a website dedicated to sharing children’s books for free! Books are sorted for toddlers, young children, older children and young adults/teenagers, and can all be either read online or downloaded as a pdf for offline reading.

As well as storybooks, this site has hundreds of non-fiction books, allowing your child to use English as a tool to learn about different countries, famous people, history, science, or whatever takes their fancy!

Try the School Textbooks category to find free textbooks and workbooks aimed both at American schoolchildren and kids studying English as a second language. The Learn to Read category is also an excellent stop if your child is just beginning to learn to read in English – it’s full of books that are simple, but engaging!

We Enjoyed: Sticky Brains by Nicole Libin is a great book for learning how to talk about emotions, as well as good and bad events. It is an easy way for kids to learn about managing stress in life.

Suggested Age Range: 3-15 years

6. The International Children’s Digital Library

The ICDL is an incredible resource for finding children’s books from all around the world. Most of the books are in English, but there are dozens of languages available. There are many books that are in more than one language, like the award-winning The Blue Sky by Andrea Petrlik Huseinović, which you can read in English, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Slovak, Romanian or Farsi! The website is easy to explore and gives you access to hundreds of books that you can read online for free!

Books are sorted by language, but also by country. You can decide whether you’d like to read books in English from America, Australia or Great Britain – just as we have different accents, you might notice some differences in how we write and tell stories!

Try finding some books that are available in both your native language and English. Read them together in your native language first, then read them together in English! Look for the White Ravens tag as well – these are top quality books that have been approved by a panel of language specialists!

We enjoyed: The Hare of Inaba, a translation of a famous Japanese fairy tale in English, German, Italian and Spanish. The story is short and easy to read and comes with many beautiful Japanese paintings!

Suggested Age Range: 5-12 years

7. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the world’s best resource for finding books for free online. Most of the books are older books, but there are still plenty of children’s books that can be read online or downloaded to read on your phone, tablet or kindle. Make sure to check the publication date of a book before using it because some of them are hundreds of years old and the English in them doesn’t look anything like modern English!

Try reading different versions of a famous story, like Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and see what new words you can learn from different books! Make sure to use the Bookshelves feature to make it easy to find the kind of books you’re looking for, such as “Children’s Picture Books”!

We enjoyed: The Blue Fairy Book is a very pretty e-book with nearly forty famous stories that are easy to read quickly!

Suggested age range: 5+ years

8. Breaking News English

Breaking News English is a website that updates every day with news articles written in English at different fluency levels, ranked from 0 to 6. The articles written at levels 0-3 should be interesting to children, but the higher levels are excellent practise for teenagers and adults, too!

Each article comes with several activities attached, with different activities for each level. The goal of these tasks is to encourage children to think and talk about the news that they’ve just read and to help your child take an interest in what’s happening in the world!

When looking for articles, try picking a Theme that interests your child – e.g. the environment or technology. Older learners can look at articles focused around education and even business!

We enjoyed: Using the listening section to hear articles read aloud. You can listen to them at different speeds to make it easier or more challenging. You can also listen to them in either American or British English so you can get used to different accents!

Suggested Age Range: 6+ years

9. Storynory

Storynory is an excellent site with stories aimed at older children, teenagers, and even adults. Above the text of each story is an audio recording, so you can listen to it as you read. Hundreds of stories, poems and non-fiction books are accessible completely free!

Storynory also contains a sizeable library of poems, rhymes and music. Children have an easier time learning rhymes and songs because they have a rhythm. Practising some of the classics available on the site can really help your child remember new vocabulary too!

Try reading the comments that people have left under each story and decide if you agree or disagree. Once you’ve read a story, leave your own comment saying what you think of it! The Junior Stories section contains short stories for younger children, and while it’s not very big right now, the collection is growing fast!

We Enjoyed: The Histories of Herodotus have been written in easy English, so your child can learn some history in a fun and engaging way!

Suggested Age Range: 8+ years

10. Simple English Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the most useful sites on the internet for learning new things, but you can also use it to help your kids learn English! Simple English Wikipedia rewrites wikipedia articles to make them easier to read, which can be very useful when you’re learning English as a second language.

This website is not the best resource for absolute beginners. However, it can be very helpful for anybody with a couple of years’ experience reading in English who wants to expand their general knowledge and their reading ability.

Try reading about your own country or your child’s favourite movie and see if you can learn something new together! Alternatively, set your child a project to do on a particular subject and show them how to use wikipedia to research their topic online. This is a useful skill to learn.

We enjoyed: The page on Basic English includes a picture wordlist, which is a great resource for learning core English vocabulary and making your own flashcards at home!

Suggested age range: 10+ years

Teaching kids to read in English: a simple technology or a true art?

First, let’s find an answer to the question as to why in our hi-tech world, in the time of YouTube and Tik-Toc, the time when all the information you seek can not only be listened to, but also viewed, why should we waste time teaching reading—a skill that, today, seems to be fairly unpopular?

However, you should explain to children that reading is not just about reading fiction in English. There are so-called ‘small forms’ related to reading to obtain necessary and, sometimes, very important information:

All of the above in no way means reading entire pages of a text in thick books.

How to get a kid ready to learn to read in English

There are different views on when to start teaching children to read in English. The main thing is to understand that learning English with children should in no case begin with learning to read. Rather, reading is introduced at a further stage, as a way to consolidate existing knowledge, skills and abilities. It would be better that by this time the kid has learnt to read in their native language. And they must already have good technical skills—making syllables from letters, and words from syllables. Then, when teaching reading in English, attention will be focused only on sound-letter and letter-sound combinations, and the kid will be less tired in the learning process.

It would also be an advantage if the kid is already familiar with spoken English, so that the kid has at least some minimal set of English speech samples in their memory. This will help to correctly analyse the auditory image of the spoken word and correlate it with the visible alphabetic image, and vice versa.

How to teach children to read in English

The process of teaching reading to children can be divided into three stages:

The process of teaching reading may not be positioned as teaching. It is better for the kid to perceive the whole process as a game. First, as a game with sounds and letters, and then as a game of words from which sentences are formed.

First stage

The purpose of the first stage is to memorise the letters of the English alphabet and the sounds that these letters stand for; special attention should be paid to memorising consonants. This issue is covered in detail in ‘English sounds and letters for children. How to make friends with them?’ and ‘How to learn the English alphabet with children: Tutorial.’ For more information, follow the links. Let’s summarise some of the core details here.

Do not forget to praise! It is important.

Remember that the main activity for children is related to play, and also that all children possess great creativity. Letters and sounds, since we started studying them, should become our friends. And we are supposed to play with friends, always coming up with something interesting. Therefore, try to create a vivid visual image from each letter: decorate it, turn it into an animal or any other association. The task is for the kid to form a solid bridge between sounds and letters. Then, first, when the kid sees d-o-g, he or she will read and see not just a combination of letters, but a real dog; second, the sound of Ssssnake, sssun, etc. will be strongly associated with the image of the letter ‘Ss.’

Second stage

The second stage—mastering basic reading rules—should be divided into 3 parts:

When getting acquainted with the rules of reading of closed syllables, first, sound-letter images of consonants are fixed in the child’s memory, and, second, the child begins to read the simplest words. This, in turn, stimulates the feeling of success in their mind and motivates for further learning.

The process itself is based on the principle of feasibility and accessibility, starting from the simplest vowel ‘o’, then ‘e’,then ‘i’, then ‘a’, and finally ‘u.’ You can finish with monosyllabic words with ‘y.’ This will be a bridge to reading open syllables.

When introducing the reading rules, it would be better to choose words that the child already knows in the spoken form. Recognizing them in reading will be a great joy. At the stage of training and consolidation, on the contrary, it is good to select new words, but always with pictures: the vocabulary will expand, consonants will be repeated, the child will definitely be reading and not guessing.

At the training and consolidation stage, we introduce gamification techniques. Children love winning and breaking records. For this reason, if from the very beginning of teaching reading you start recording the time of reading in their ‘success diary’, then the child will see progress and this will stimulate the kid to learn to read further.

How to introduce and practice reading rules

There are several options. You can make cards. Or you can find a cartoon. One of the best options would be the ‘Let’s read’ series from the Maple Leaf Learning website (for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQkPO3qpUCg&t=2s), where they clearly pronounce a vowel sound and further combine it with different consonants. The child can repeat. Due to the fact that the words do not appear entirely but letter by letter, even the littlest ones will quickly learn to read.

For consolidation and practice, you can find reading simulators. They are lists of words composed of one or more reading rules. There are a lot of such simulators on the Internet! You can download some of them for free or find online options (for example, here https://www.youtube.com/playlist? list=PLPVtHmdLrdV-cAi4yTnGWZwf35_BH0uUN) and read, read, and read!

When the child has already learnt to read several vowels, then they can start reading combinations of words or phrases with different consonants. Such exercises are a transitional stage to reading entire sentences. Attention is getting trained, and the reading rules are getting practiced. You can select words with different consonants, for example, “big bag”. Such an exercise is also good for practicing reading open and closed syllables.

It is recommended to alternate reading exercises with play. For instance, kids love to make words from letters. It is almost like writing a dictation, but making words from letters is more interesting! When kids accumulate enough words, then you could try playing making words.

The so-called ‘ladders’ are also good for practicing reading. These ladders are columns of words grouped as a ladder—every new line has one more word added to the previous words. Thus, the ladder starts from one word, and, on the fifth line, there will be five words. The ladder method is a good technique to teach reading a whole sentence with different words. Thanks to the repetition in every line, kids memorise difficult combinations of letters. Ladders should and must be read using a timer.

The third stage is when we learn to read texts in English.

Minitexts can be introduced after teaching to read closed syllables. These would be the simplest texts with 3-4 short sentences, something like this:

This is a cat.

The cat is black.

It is fat.

It is in the bag.

Don’t forget to add a picture! First, it decorates the text and, second, it creates a visual image. The kid then understands the meaning of what they are reading better and, if they forget the word, the picture helps them remember. If the text has a new word, the picture helps develop contextual guessing.

However, it is not sufficient to use only descriptive texts. Let’s repeat: not everyone loves reading. But everyone should practice reading; so, what options do we have? Let’s also keep in mind that texts can have different meanings. Your goal is to create conditions where the kid cannot avoid reading. First, you could combine reading with other activities. For example, colouring. The key to colouring could be given as a text in English, so the kid can only find answers reading that text. The text will have the ‘read-and-colour’ instructions.

The second option is ‘finish-the-picture’ activities. This is when something needs to be added to the picture to make it complete. These exercises make the kids repeat colours, topic vocabulary, or grammar, for example, prepositions if the task is to find something, where and what it might be. Such activities engage kids and make them read, even those who do not like to read. Have you tried to draw a little monster following some descriptions with your kid? Or, maybe, a fantastic creature with three heads and five tails? You haven’t?

To offer variety, a second type of activity could be instructions like ‘draw a path’ or ‘read and say what it is’. These activities help create conditions for in-depth reading. If it is a path, then every tiny detail can be important! The same goes for the second task. Usually, it is a picture where there are a lot of identical objects or people, and the task is to find something or somebody fitting that description. Such exercises not only develop reading skills but help in memorizing words and learning grammar in a passive way.

Reading exercises can be based on physical activities. How? It is very easy! You can use some signs. Hide small notes with the clues for where to go and what to do around the room. These adventures can be really interesting for kids, so they naturally have to read those instructions in the hidden notes. And what if there is some kind of surprise awaiting the winner… The kid will be ready to read in English all day long just to keep on playing a game like this!

How to develop English reading skills in children

English reading rules have tons of exceptions that can make it difficult to learn reading even for the most motivated students. When the kid accumulates the lexical basis, they develop a mechanism of ‘acting on analogy’. This means that, when reading new words, the kid applies a ‘sample’ from his or her memory. It sounds paradoxical but the accumulation of these samples requires constant reading.

Simultaneous listening and reading or watching video with subtitles can be helpful. The main idea is to listen to the ‘model for imitation’ with proper pronunciation. The listening-and-reading activity might be challenging, but watching cartoons and movies for kids will be much more interesting and easier! We could recommend watching cartoons based on well-known fairy tales on the Pink Fong website (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-X4xVb-jNA). The cartoons have clear pronunciation, simple texts, large letters and an easy to follow plot.

How to start ‘real’ reading in English?

Reading in English should be pleasant for kids not only as a process but because they get this ‘I read and I understand’ moment! If the kid understands that reading is not scary but is actually something really fun, then they will be OK with reading. That is why we recommend to start reading about something the kid is interested in, and, second, visual information must prevail over textual information (more pictures, less text).

For these reasons, comics are the best option for first reading! Comics are based on well-known cartoons, so if the kid is familiar with these cartoons, they will be interested in learning new things about the favourite characters. What’s your kid’s hobby? Toy cars? Thomas the Tank Engine? Paw Patrol? You can download comics for free.

What do English kids prefer reading?

True lovers of English would love reading the books that English kids read. English children’s most favourite books are about Winnie the Witch and Wilbur the Cat. What adventures they have had! A short but captivating plot, funny illustrations, and easy language have made this book popular far beyond the United Kingdom. You can download the stories as well as audio books from the Internet.

Some other favourite characters are Peter Rabbit and Paddington Bear. The language is more difficult, and there are a lot of descriptions. But the stories are interesting.

And, of course, Harry Potter! Many want to learn English just to be able to read the original Harry Potter series.

Thus, teaching reading in English can be an interesting activity that can make the kid love reading and love English. If you need professional support, video lessons from Novakid, an online school of English for kids, are great for kids and their parents. Our tutors will help your kid to learn not only to read but to speak English, because the learning process is built as communication in English only! It’s worth a try, the first lesson is free!

How to Teach Reading to Children (for Teachers)

This article was co-authored by Soren Rosier, PhD. Soren Rosier is a PhD candidate at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. He studies how children teach each other and how to train effective peer teachers. Before beginning his PhD, he was a middle school teacher in Oakland, California, and a researcher at SRI International. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 2010.

There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 100% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status.

This article has been viewed 29,370 times.

Children usually learn to read beginning around the ages of 5 or 6. In the United States, this will typically be around first grade. Though there are many methods for teaching reading to children, research suggests that teaching phonics is one of the best ways to ensure that you can help all of the children in your classroom learn to read well. [1] X Research source Take steps to teach children how to pronounce each letter before moving on to short words and word families. Encourage families to get involved in their child’s learning, and make learning fun for the children.

How to Teach Kids to Read: 10 Simple Steps to Try at Home

Learning to read is a complex process that doesn’t happen on its own. The best way to teach kids to read is by making it fun.

Most people don’t think about the process of learning to read until they decide to start teaching their own children at home.

Contrary to what some people believe, learning to read is not a ‘natural’ process that happens all on its own. It’s a complex one that requires the proper teaching of various skills and strategies, such as phonics (knowing the relationship between letters and sounds) and phonemic awareness.

The good news is that although reading itself is a complex process, the steps taken in order to build these skills are fairly simple and straightforward. In order to teach kids how to read and make it a positive and rewarding experience, try these simple and time‑tested strategies below.

Here are 10 simple steps to teach your child to read at home:

1. Use songs and nursery rhymes to build phonemic awareness

Children’s songs and nursery rhymes aren’t just a lot of fun—the rhyme and rhythm help kids to hear the sounds and syllables in words, which helps them learn to read. A good way to build phonemic awareness (one of the most important skills in learning to read) is to clap rhythmically together and recite songs in unison. This playful and bonding activity is a fantastic way for kids to implicitly develop the literacy skills that will set them up for reading success.

2. Make simple word cards at home

Cut out simple cards and write a word containing three sounds on each one (e.g. ram, sat, pig, top, sun, pot, fin). Invite your child to choose a card, then read the word together and hold up three fingers. Ask them to say the first sound they hear in the word, then the second, and then the third. This simple activity requires little prep‑time and builds essential phonics and decoding skills (helping them learn how to sound out words). If your child is just starting out with learning the letters of the alphabet, focus on the sound each letter makes, more so than letter names.

Reading Eggs teaches phonics skills—an important tool to help children decode and read words—with interactive activities that are fun and highly engaging. Free trial.

3. Engage your child in a print-rich environment

Create daily opportunities to build your child’s reading skills by creating a print‑rich environment at home. Seeing printed words (on posters, charts, books, labels etc.) enables children to see and apply connections between sounds and letter symbols. When you’re out and about, point out letters on posters, billboards and signs. In time you can model sounding out the letters to make words. Focus on the first letter in words. Ask your child “What sound is that letter?” “What other word starts with that sound?” “What word rhymes with that word?”

4. Play word games at home or in the car

5. Understand the core skills involved in teaching kids to read

It’s important to remember that learning to read involves various different skills. There are five essential components of reading that you can read about here. These are the skills all children need in order to successfully learn how to read. In summary, these include:

Reading Eggs incorporates all five components of reading in its online lessons. Children are introduced to a range of interactive activities that reinforce letter sounds and symbols, building phonemic awareness and phonics skills, as well as vocabulary and comprehension. The e‑book at the end of each lesson allows children to apply the skills they have learned. Free trial.

6. Play with letter magnets

Middle vowel sounds can be tricky for some children, which is why this activity can be so helpful. Prepare letter magnets on the fridge and pull the vowels to one side (a, e, i, o, u). Say a CVC word (consonant-vowel-consonant), for example ‘cat’, and ask your child to spell it using the magnets. To help them, say each vowel sound aloud (/ayh/, /eh/, /ih/, /awe/, /uh/) while pointing at its letter, and ask your child which one makes a sound similar to the middle sound.

7. Harness the power of technology to keep your child engaged

Learning to read should be an enjoyable process in order to keep kids motivated to improve. Sometimes a child might be full of excitement and eagerness to learn at the beginning, but once they hit a wall can feel overwhelmed and give up easily. As a parent, it can feel impossible to pick up again and know where to fill in any gaps that may be causing frustration.

Reading Eggs uses self‑paced lessons that match each individual child’s ability. Children are regularly rewarded for completing activities and reaching new levels, which keeps them motivated to stay on track. Parents can also view instant progress reports to see how a child’s skills are improving.

8. Read together on a daily basis and ask questions about the book

A lot of people don’t realize just how many skills can be picked up through the simple act of reading to a child. Not only are you showing them how to sound out words, you’re also building key comprehension skills, growing their vocabulary, and letting them hear what a fluent reader sounds like. Most of all, regular reading helps your child to develop a love of reading, which is the best way to set them up for reading success.

Strengthen your child’s comprehension skills by asking questions while reading. For younger children, encourage them to engage with the pictures (e.g. “Do you see the boat? What color is the cat?”). For older children, ask questions about what you’ve just read, like “Why do you think the little bird was afraid?” “When did Sophie realize she had special powers?”

9. Play games to memorize high-frequency sight words every day

Reading Eggs makes it easy for children to learn and memorize sight words through interactive activities and repetition. Free trial.

Sight words are ones that cannot be easily sounded out and need to be recognized on sight. High‑frequency sight words are ones that occur very often in reading and writing (e.g. you, I, we, am, had, and, to, the, have, they, where, was, does).

The strategy for learning sight words is, «See the word, say the word». Learning to identify and read sight words is essential for young children to become fluent readers. Most children will be able to learn a few sight words at the age of four (e.g. is, it, my, me, no, see, and we) and around 20 sight words by the end of their first year of school. You can teach sight words by playing with flashcards and using reading programs like Reading Eggs.

10. Be patient; the best way to teach kids to read is to make it fun!

Every child learns at his or her own pace, so always remember the single most important thing you can do is to make it enjoyable. By reading regularly, mixing things up with the activities you choose, and letting your child pick out their own books occasionally, you’ll instil an early love of reading and give them the best chance at reading success in no time.

Looking for a fun and educational virtual camp idea for the summer? See how Reading Eggs can help prevent summer learning loss while keeping your little ones entertained.

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How to Teach Kids to Read with Phonics

Teaching kids to read with phonics is one of the most effective methods used to help kids learn to read. Whether you are a parent or teacher, knowing how to teach kids to read with phonics is an important asset.

The ability to read is an important life skill and one that we use on a daily basis without even realising it.

Whether it is reading a food label, a clothing label, a shopping list, or a billboard, we are reading every single day.

As children start school, reading becomes an important subject, and one of the main skills they need to learn to move forward academically.

Every parent wants their children do do well at school. We all want our kids to be able learn to read efficiently.

While there are different methods to teach this important life skill, using phonics is the most effective methods when teaching kids to read.

What is phonics?

Teaching kids to read using phonics means teaching the sounds made by individual letters or letter groups. Then teaching children how to join those sounds together to make a whole word.

In other words, rather than teaching a child to recognise a word as a whole you teach them to break the word up sounding each of the sounds the letters make within a word.

For example if we use the word dog, you wouldn’t show your child to say the word dog. Using phonics you would teach your child to sound out each letter, d – o – g, and then say the word, dog.

Using the word shop, you would sound out the letters, sh – o – p. Putting the first two letters S and H together to make the “sh” sound.

Why are phonics important?

Phonics allows children to be able to learn words they have never seen before by sounding out the word letter by letter.

When children learn to read a word by sight it means that they will be able to remember how to pronounce that word when they see it again.

But if they see a word they don’t recognise they won’t have the skills needed to decode how to pronounce it. This is why phonics are important.

Teaching children to read with phonics means not only teaching them the decoding skills needed to look at a word and pronounce it correctly but also giving them the skills to know what to do when they discover a new word.

After a while, as children become more skilled readers, all of the phonics sounds will become automatic and your child will be able to read fluently.

How to make phonics fun for kids

Children learn best when having fun. No matter what you are teaching your child, if you make it fun, they will retain the information you are teaching them more effectively. Turn learning into a game and make it fun.

Read to your kids

One of the most important ways to make phonics fun for kids is read to them regularly. Read to your kids every day.

Even when kids cannot read themselves yet, getting into a reading routine will instil a love for reading.

Start from the word go, even when your child is a baby, read together every day. As your child gets older, turn the pages together, and start to point to the words as you read so they start to understand what reading is all about.

When your child is old enough, ask your child to sound out some of the words with you as you read.

Play alphabet games using phonics

Phonics games and Word games such as I-spy are great for this.

Ask your child to look for something starting with “A”. Rather than saying the letter name, say the letter sound. This will help your child get used to using phonics before they even start to read.

You can also choose one letter sound and ask your child to name as many things as they can starting with that sound.

For example:
A is for – apple, ant, astronaut, alligator etc
Ch is for – chips, chocolate, cherries, chicken etc.

Using these types of games to teach kids the basics of phonics helps them to practice their reading skills without realising that they are learning. It works great because there so there is no real pressure.

Using apps to teach phonics

There are various apps to help children learn to read with phonics. Reading Eggs is a great one with various levels to help kids learn to read and spell using phonics.

Phonics and English

While phonics is a great way to teach kids to read, children will still need to learn some site words when learning to read in English.

Unlike languages such as Italian for example, where you read most words as you spell them, there are some words in the English language which are not spelled phonetically correct.

These words will need to be learned by site, but the majority of the English language is able to be read using phonics.

Using Phonics to Teach Kids to Read

Of course all children are different, and a method which works for one, doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for all.

But if you are teaching kids to read, or searching for different methods, using phonics has been proven to be the most effective.

Phonics allows kids to develop their decoding skills in order to learn new words more easily and become fluent readers.

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Bilingual Kidspot

Bilingual Kidspot is a website offering practical advice for parents seeking to raise bilingual or multilingual children; with inspiration, support and strategies based on experience as a parent, and as a teacher of a foreign language to children.