How to Teach a Preschooler to Read

Seeing your child read for the first time is one of the greatest joys of being a parent.

There are fun ways to teach them to read.

Here are a few ideas to get your child reading.

Flash cards are a great, portable way to learn to read the letters in the alphabet.

You can either buy them at the store or make them yourself.

Most store bought ones will either have a letter on one side and a picture that begins with that letter on the other side.

You could either make your flash cards with pictures or you could make them with the capital letter on one side and the lower-case letter on the other side.

To make the cards, you will need to fold a piece of paper into 4-6 squares and then cut along the folds.

Teach the sounds of the letters while you are teaching them the names of the letters.

After awhile they will be able to put the sounds together to make words.

Smartphones have many great educational apps that you could download for a low price or free.

When looking for them, enter phrases like "learn to read" or "preschool" into your search in the app store to find dozens of great apps.

I have found shelves of books at the library in the kids area that were written at a very, basic level to help children learn to read.

One of my favorites is the "Bob Books".

They are small, paper books that children can hold onto easily.

Each page has a few large-print, simple words to read.

The books only take around 5 minutes to finish for a child just learning to read.

My son always has such a proud smile on his face when he finishes reading me a book.

Little by little he is getting faster as we practice.

While reading to your child, point to the words that you are reading as you read them so they can see what words look like and how the letters make up the words.

Ask them what letters are in the word.

See if they can sound them out.

You have to be very patient while teaching your child to read.

If you are impatient or getting upset, your child will see this and it will deter them from wanting to learn.

Their little minds are working hard to figure this out.

It would be like us trying to learn a new language.

It takes time to learn and perfect it.

Try to work on recognizing and sounding out letters and words any chance you can get.

Find words on signs, magazines and papers while you have time.

Ask your child what letters they see and ask them to sound out the simpler words around them.

Look at cereal or milk containers and ask them to find words and letters on them.

Letters and words are all around us.

You can make a game out of it to make it fun.

Make a word of the day and have them point it out every time they see it.

Learning to read can be fun and a bit stressful for children but the main thing is to make it as fun as possible and to work on it for a little bit each day.