Happy New Year to all! At the time of year when so many of us try to ‘re-set’, have a fresh start, try again, I’ve decided to share some information that quite a few friends have asked me about over the years – what material did I use when I taught my kids to read? Now, this website is entitled a parent’s-eye view for a reason: I am not an expert, I’m a parent, but for what it’s worth, here are my thoughts.
Teaching reading has changed a lot since I learnt to read. There have been big debates about it, and you can read plenty about the science and experience if you want to – I’ve put a couple of links below but a quick search will yield lots of results. The big difference is that children these days are taught phonics, which I never learned at all. I learnt to read with Peter and Jane. So starting to teach my kids to read was a venture into a new world, and one of the things that occupied me while this blog was on hiatus.
I should say that the ‘right’ age to learn to read is very child specific; some want to learn when they’re very young, others come to it later. And we could have hours of debate about the ‘right’ age to start reading or any form of formal education. I started to teach both my kids to read before they started Kindergarten (school in the USA typically starts with K in the year the children turn 6 years old, a year later than in the UK where kids start the year they turn 5.)
Why did I teach them? I wanted to unlock a world for them. And I didn’t want too big a gap to open up between the books they were interested in and the books they were capable of reading for themselves. Reading felt like one of the most important, life-changing gifts I could give them, and I suppose I wanted to be the one who gave them that gift – though I won’t pretend it was all plain sailing. What I do want to share is the book series I used, since it was vital to the whole endeavour.
As a phonics-ignorant adult, I am sure I didn’t do it quite like they teach it in school. (I have in fact been corrected a number of times by my nephew.) However, I think taking an interest in your child’s reading, supporting them, helping them read, reading together, will always be valuable.
The books I used were from one of my favourite children’s publishers, Usborne. It’s a series called Very First Reading.
Here’s the USA link: https://usborne.com/us/very-first-reading-how-it-works
And the UK link: https://usborne.com/gb/very-first-reading-how-it-works
The things that made this series work for us, when others didn’t:
- There’s a child page and an adult page for the first 7 books, so the story can be more complex than the child alone can manage because the adult can move it along. Having a page each means you really are reading together, not just being read to.
- The stories are fun and lively and brightly illustrated.
- A small number of phonics are introduced in each book, along with some ‘tricky’ words that don’t follow the rules, and – vitally – no ‘random extras’ are thrown in. The child’s part sticks to sounds and words they have covered.
- There are guidance notes at the back for the adult, and puzzles based on the story for the child.
- The website includes support material including my favourite, the word banks (yay!), with lots of words using the phonics learnt plus the tricky words which are available to print for extra practice. The first in the series is ‘Pirate Pat’ and here’s the support material: https://usborne.com/gb/quicklinks/quicklink/4197-pirate-pat (I love the word banks so much ….)
- The series builds systematically; it’s logical and straightforward. There are two books for each set of phonics in the early stages and then one.
- When you get to the end of the series (Mr Mystery), after much celebration, there’s the next series waiting, and the next, coded by difficulty level, so you can keep offering your kids books at the right level. So after Very First Reading, there’s Usborne First Reading levels 1-4, then there’s also English Readers starter level and levels 1-3 and Phonics stories – etc, the list goes on.
To support and give more practice, as well as the word banks I also used a set of phonics cards to play games with – usually with some stuffed animal support. And a plain, unillustrated set of flashcards of ‘tricky’ and high frequency words, as some things just have to be learnt (Peter and Jane 50 flashcards by Ladybird – nostalgic for me and delightfully plain).
Thinking back, we have played a lot of word and letter games over the years: bean bags printed with letters thrown around the house, the endless rounds of ‘what animals begin with’ and now ‘the countries game’ (going round, each person has to say a country or town starting with the last letter of the previous place). One of my best investments was a child’s easel with a whiteboard on the side that is used for everything from art to schedules to surveys to decide what film to watch for a family movie night. I’ve also used it to ‘play words’ and show how you can change one letter to make lots of different words. I suppose so much of it is about sharing my enthusiasm for words and stories and books.
Before I finish, it will have escaped no one’s attention that many children don’t learn to read easily at school, and some need more support so they don’t get left behind. I support a charity local to us, New Haven Reads, who provide tutors and books to local kids. https://newhavenreads.org/. You can donate here: https://newhavenreads.networkforgood.com/projects/67077-support-new-haven-reads-and-transform-a-child-s-life
Or there may be organisations near you that would value your support so please do consider donating your time, money, or used books.
Some links on teaching reading:
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2024/09/harvard-reading-wars-literacy-education
P.S. What I’m reading… I have just finished Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss (Granta, 2018) – unusual for my husband to recommend anything with even a whisper of a ghost, albeit only in the title – this is about a teenager and her family on an ‘experiential archaeology’ exercise in rural Northumberland – powerful, menacing and completely compelling. I am now debating between starting Sally Rooney’s Normal People or some non-fiction I had for Christmas, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, or both, or neither…
Books for Our Children 