Reading System for Preschooler

Learning Leapfrog has an abundance of GREAT stuff. The computer type case that has letters, large & small, phonics, sounds, small words, etc is AWESOME. Abbie used this for 2-3 years. She is now in first grade and has been tested to reading at third grade level!

My son learned his letters by age 2. I found a free website that is great for learning to read. Schools in my area use it. There are other great learning tools on it as well, such as music, and calendars. Its www.starfall.com

My sister used "The Bob Books" series for my nephew when he was 3, and I am using them now with my 2 yr old. They are wonderful books and work great!

I don't know if you are familiar with the Leap Frog Company - but they have a great DVD called the Letter Factory. It teaches kids all of the letters and their sounds and put it all to music. My Daughter learned the letter sounds very quickly with this. Good Luck

I strongly suggest that you not waste your money on Hooked on Phonics! I'm sure it works, but mostly it does what you can do naturally at home with your daughter.

The best thing to do is just to read to her at least 3 times a day, and make one of those books a familiar one that she hears all the time. She will start seeing words she'll recognize, and even if it takes a few more months, she'll start reading before you know it!

If you'd like some outside help, you can get Your Baby Can Read. Even though it was originally intended to teach infants to read, which I think isn't always the best goal for a little child, it has also been proven to work with preschool-age children, as well. You can check it out at yourbabycanread.com. If you end up buying this, you can use it for both of your daughters.

One word of caution: a program like this MUST be used wisely - never force a child to watch the DVDs or work with the flashcards. Follow your child's lead, and go easy. If it's fun, then it will work!

I'm an Early Childhood Specialist, by the way. :)

My best to you and your two and a half children. LOL

-- B.

You really don't need to spend money on a system or a toy. A book from the library can guide you, but at this point, just sit down with books and go over the sounds: B: ball, boat, bug. Look at pictures and say "find all the s words". Spend the day doing activities like that and she'll pick it up quickly, you can do it anywhere, no batteries to wear out and it's a fun thing to do together. My son reads at a 9th grade level and he's 8. We just read everything together all the time. And phonics is only about half the story of reading: MANY words are not phonetic, so reading requires a lot of explanation and memorization as well!

My older son started reading at 4 and my younger son started just before he turned 3. We read nightly to them. I think the greatest help at the beginning though is them having the phonetics down pat. Once they had that foundation, we would read beginner books to them with our finger on each word as we go along, often dragging the word out by sounding out each letter. What really helped them learn the phonetics was this toy by Neurosmith called Phonics Tiles. We hung it on the wall and the toy sounds out each letter they put on it. It teaches spelling later on too. It's interactive and I think we got it at Sam's for around $20-25 a few years ago. Huge help in them learning their phonetics.

Hooked on Phonics seems pretty pricy to me. I've never used it but I'm sure it's a good product.

we did hooked phonics, it was fun amd easy and the kids caught on quickly. Good luck but, if they are interested and then stop being interested, let it go. Sometimes kids say that they are interested in something and then their mind is not really ready so, they stop wanting to do it. As long as she is still enjoying it and is excited to do it keep on going. one of my daughters could read at age four (her idea) and then lost interest and her teachers explained told me to et it go adn stop having her do it until SHE asked again.... that you want it to be somethig positive she relates reading with so that she get better and better in school so don't have it be associated with anything negative.
Good luck and enjoy its fun for the parents too.

My mom had hooked on phonics for us when we were kids...I think we used it once and she finally dontated it to a school. She said another thing that was "money well waisted" :)
I have a kindergartener now, and we used at that age, Leap frop Videos. They have this frog named Tad and his 2 siblings and parents. His dad runs a talking dictionary company and they learn different songs for the letters and such. He had all his letter sounds down rather quickly. They also have a word building on, number one and a few others. We watched the letter one about 3 times and he had almost all his letter sounds down. Good luck in deciding.

I don't know of a system, but to learn the sounds of the letters I got my son (who is 2) the Leap Frog Letter Factory video and he knows all the sounds to the letters now. They also have a video that puts together short words, but I can't remember the name of it. He has been watching that video since he was about 1 1/2 and he knew the sounds of the letters before he could actually say the letters. I know that doesn't replace a system but it would be a fun way to reinforce what she is learning.

You said it! Hooked on Phonics. We used that MANY years ago to help my little sister learn to read & it was wonderful! I remember:

There were cards with the different letters of the alphabet on them. At the top of the card, was the letter "Aa". Then below it was the noise it makes. Then a word "apple" that uses that noise. Also, a picture of an apple. Back then, it was a cassette tape and the person would read through it the card with you. ...wow, i stink at explaining stuff. LOL!

Anyhow, it worked great. It was fun. I recommend it highly.

It's great she's so eager to read! We've read to my son since he was an infant. Just by doing this he's learned many words, and is starting to read at 4 years old. He does have My First Leap Pad, but uses it more to play games (although I'm sure it helped with learning some words). My advice is to just interact with her -- get some of the learn to read books that introduce only so many words at once. Take time throughout the day and before bedtime and read, and help her read. I know it's not always easy to find time (I also have a 17 month old and am due with #3 in 6 weeeks!), but it's well worth it.

My sister used the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. It worked well for her 4 children. They were reading by 5 I believe.

I had wanted to send my response to you private. I've used the edit feature to delete what I wrote.

If you want to check out the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Different Ways" before buying it, check for it at your library. I just looked at mine online and it is there and I can check it out first.

I second the Leap Frog Talking Letter Factory and Words Factory. My DS watched it consecutively for days, and he picked up all the sounds within a week!

I used a system called "Sing, Spell, Read and Write" and it worked great with my daughter. I'm not sure where to find it because I borrowed it from a friend. My daughter is 6 and is reading at a 5th grade level.

While I can agree Hooked on Phonics is useful the American English language is not phonitic. I would recommend Leap Frog or Leap Pad to help her. My daughter learned to read phonitically and can't spell her way through a normal document because she spells words the way the sound! Good luck, cat is kat, pneumonia is a great one too.

I have no experience with this yet, but was wondering about checking with your childrens librarian. I remember a while ago at our storytime, the librarian sort of suggested the school does not want the kids to know how to read before they start school. Not because they want to hold kids back from learning, but because they don't want the kids to have to learn a new system. Some schools use phonics, others use different systems? If she really wants to learn, I guess it would be helpful if she learns the way the school will be teacing her? Just a suggestion. Good luck with your ambitious little girl!

I sell Usborne Books and we have quite a variety of reading books. One of our combined volume books is called "Ted and Friends". It has four stories and it helps teach phonics. We have touchy- feely books, books with multiple stories, books on cd's, flashcards for early learning, books for different reading levels as your daughter gets older.

Let me know if you have certain questions about books.

Here is my website: ubah.com/T2267
J. R.
Educational Consultant

My daughter learned to read at age 4 using a book called Teach Your Child to read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann. It is excellent. We only did about 60 lessons (1 per day), and she took off from there. It is $14.96 on Amazon.There are no additional resources needed,and the lessons are simple and short enough for a four year old. I plan to use it with my other daughter and son too. Sometimes less is more, and the quality time this creates with your daughter will be a lasting memory for her.

My daughter is 5 now and in kindergarten, but she started reading right around her 4th birthday and reads very well now. My 3-year-old is also starting to learn some letter sounds although she's nowhere near reading yet.

We never used any kind of system. The best thing we did was to just read, read, and read some more. We have a ton of books at all reading levels from just 1-2 words per page to chapter books.

We also have the LeapFrog fridge magnet alphabet set that sings the sounds for each letter. Sesame Street and SuperWhy are great educational shows. My MIL gave us an old set of phonics videos that my 5-year-old watched about 5 times, and I think that helped, but she was already on the way to learning her sounds at that point anyway.

Throughout the day, we play little games with letters/sounds whenever they pop up. The other night at dinner, we tried to name a bunch of words that started with S. Sometimes in the car, we'll name rhyming words or talk about what letter a word ends with. If I see a sign with an easy word on it (STOP, No, go, etc.), we'll read it, sound it out, and talk about it.

Oh, and we do have a variety of activity books for the kids to practice writing letters/numbers, learning what sounds the letters make, and doing other preschool skills.

Just remember to have fun, and your daughter will be reading in no time!

I highly recommend The Letter Factory and Talking Words Factory videos by Leap Frog. I also have a 4 & a 2 year old. My 2 year old can even tell us what sounds certain letters make. Excellent learning tool!!!

My daughter is now in first grade. We also used the Letter factory game and videos at that age. Then once she had her sounds down, we started using "The Bob Books" series. They come in a boxed set and are available at various levels of difficulty. Obviously they begin at the very beginning level, and work up. It was recommended by a former kindergarten and preschool teacher to me because these books start so very basically, but have a specific arrangement for how the kids learn to read the most easily. Plus, the kids get excited because they are reading books, and it helps instill some confidence in their abilities. I have several friends who also tried these books after I told them about them, and their kids started reading and doing well. So, I would look into those as well. Good luck!