I would like my 4 year old to learn how to read - Early reading

It would be great for her to learn how to read at 4. My sister learned how to read when she was four and is now enrolled in a gifted program. The higher her level of reading the better.

I think that it is very smart to teach your child to read, at the age of four. However, my recommendation is to take it slow. Start by teaching your child the alphabet (if she does not already know it), build up to teaching her phonics, move on to simple words, followed by sentences, and finally move into short stories or passages. Teaching your child the basics, step-by-step, will help her to progress more rapidly, as she moves on in the future to higher levels of reading and the English language in general (i.e. spelling, vocabulary development, pronunciation, etc.).

Dear Melanie, I began at age 4 so I know that it is do-able. Children learn at different rates so while your daughter is not conventionally due to begin reading for another year or two, it would do no harm to introduce reading at her age. I would begin by introducing the alphabet. Sing the song! Write it in big colorful marker on a banner. Get those letter shaped fridge magnets. Everything so that these symbols can be memorized. Then of course you would have to name them for her. When you're out on the street point out letters. I live in NYC and our trains have big colorful letters so I point them out. Praise her when she is able to recognize some on her own. If she has already become familiarized with the alphabet go over the alphabet sounds. Not the letter names, but the sounds. So if you see a big M on a street name, say "MMmmmmm" instead of "Em". From there you can start with sight words. As with the alphabet, hang some index cards with sigh words on her wall/fridge/notebook. Go over them with her until she memorizes them. There are also many sigh word books at many bookstores and libraries and I find its the easiest way to introduce them to reading. English is complex and many students don't truly understand why the letter Y is pronounced differently for different occasions, so sight words help a lot. Hope that helps and good luck!

I would begin with Reading to her on a regular basis to draw an interest and a readiness. Design flashcards with oral vocabulary words that your child recites and can recognize to build sight vocabulary keeping it very simple. Enjoy and happy trails!

I would begin with teaching your child the sounds to each of the letters of the alphabet. When reading we do not state the name of the letters we say the sounds. Once she can correlate the sound with the shape of the letter (the letter itself) start putting them together to form simple cvc (consonant vowel consonant) words such as cat, dog, fun. There are phonemic awareness books that you can get to reiterate this skill. This is a good starting point as you also continue to build her oral vocabulary skills.

I would check to see if she is ready to learn to read first. Do you have a print rich environment? Does she recognize items by their pictures? Can she pick out pictures of items that begin with a certain sound? For example, if you give her the /r/ sound can she pick out a rat or rake? Then I would gather phonic style games and work with her on those. Make it appealing and fun. I would also make sure you read together a few times a day. I have seen that children who are read to at a young age find reading easier as they get older.

This is a completely realistic goal! Me and my siblings all learned to read before starting public school. We did not suffer any emotional scars. Rather reading, for a child, is a lot of fun. One thing I would suggest is to limit the amount of TV he/she is exposed to because while reading is fun, it is comparatively boring for a child pitted against TV. Remember, children are like sponges so teaching them can be easy. Use word association and help them memorize words like "it, the, as, like..." that are difficult to associate with pictures. Remember, he/she will learn spelling and grammar in school so right now your concern is not to overwhelm him but to lay a nice foundation to build upon.

That is wonderful that she wants to learn how to read early on. When I was little my mother would play games with me such as memory, and we had flash cards in both English and Spanish and we learned how to read early on. Another thing that may be effective is to read to her before bed time and encourage her any time that she wants to read or do anything. I hope that this is helpful to you.

I recommend learning reading skills as soon as they show an interest! In fact, reading with your toddler is a great way of introducing the concept, and certainly at 4, learning to read is a great way of extending kid's attention span and concentration skills, as well as providing something that you can share with your child.

Hi Melanie, I am a math tutor by profession, but if you ask my four grown children what the most important thing I ever taught them was, they all will not hesitate to say, "To READ!" Reading first starts with a love of books and a zeal for learning. From the very earliest age we read to our children. After that we used a variety of simple 'learn to read' programs, beginner books (chose the ones they like!) and paper and pencil. Taking daily short times each day to practice is what matters the most. It is not so important to learn the names of the letters nearly as much as what they sound like and how they are used. We taught them the rules of phonics and how to sound out simple words. Interestingly, it is sort of like playing musical instruments. At first our brains will work at figuring it out, but quickly it will become automatic. My oldest son is now a Captain in the Air Force, but at 4 years old he could barely talk. We had started teaching him to read, and by the time he was 5 he could read almost anything he wanted. So please don't peg your child any one way, they are all a bit different. And above all, remember to have fun together!

Hi Melanie, our son is 7 now, but we had him started reading books when he was 4 years old. I think it is best to regularly take her to the library and let she picks out the books that she loves to read. Set a nightly reading schedule so that you can read to her and/or with her.

Good idea but only if the child is interested. Forced studying at an early age can turn the child off and make it more difficult to learn later. However, a gifted child is usually very interested in any kind of learning. Appropriate books are available at public libraries and on Amazon.com.