Magnetic Letter Reading Lessons

Several people have asked me about teaching phonics and reading and the best way to do it....so here's one of my lessons with my kindergartener today.

I use a book called 'The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Reading'. This book has 231 lessons ranging from 15-20 minutes each. They start out with learning the sounds each letter makes....by lesson 27 you start reading short three letter words; then, by the last lesson you are reading at a 4th grade reading level. It's a wonderful book and I highly recommend it!

Now lots of children learn in different ways....so instead of just tossing a book or a workbook down and doing the pages, you should add some hands on stuff in there! Make it fun! One thing I did that worked really well for my girls was to buy the magnetic letters (usually found in the $1 toy section at Walmart) and do reading lessons with those. Here's how I do it:

Set up a magnetic board or surface with a short two-letter word that you can add a letter in front of to make a three letter word. I used the word 'at' and at the top I placed the letters we'd be using to make more words.



You start out with your base word and have the child sound it out. Once they understand that word drag a letter from the top. Ask them what sound the letter makes....my example, I used 'b'. Then cover the 'b' and ask what this word (point to 'at') was again. Uncover the 'b' and smoosh the letters together and have the child sound them out again.

Once your child gets the hang of the 'at' words move on to another two letter word and go from there! My girls do really well when I give them more hands on activities instead of just using the books and workbooks....they tend to drool a bit when we do that!

Happy Reading!!!!