Teaching My Toddler to Read, Step 1: Pre-Reading
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Before I start this blog post I want to clarify that my son’s reading journey is not within the standard range for reading at his age. While I do believe a lot of what I did to teach him has supported his interests, I have to acknowledge that much of this is simply him. And no actual reading instruction began until he independently showed a strong interest. I stopped sharing on social media about his reading journey when I realized that he was moving at a pace that was far outside the norm for a 3-year-old (or even an older child). His early reading where he was slowly blending CVC words did not feel as out of the norm but now that he is reading books that are at at least a first but likely second grade level I have realized this is not within the norm. He is likely gifted, though we won’t be exploring the gifted identification process yet. I say this for full transparency as I share some of how I supported his reading. I have considered not sharing at all but this is something I am getting asked about very frequently. As such this is the first in what will be a series on how I taught my son to read. I will share more parts of the journey soon, but I am going to start here with the important pre-reading skills.
The first step to reading is developing pre-reading skills. This sets a strong foundation for reading. This blog post covers all activities we did before he showed any interest in actual reading and these are activities I would consider developmentally appropriate for many children starting around 2 or 2.5. A child does not need to have any interest in the alphabet to build some of the foundational skills that will be useful when they start to show interest in reading. When I am asked how to introduce the alphabet to a young toddler I generally steer people to instead start here. That said, if your child is not interested in these things, wait! There’s no need to push. These should be fun games to play.
Isolating First Sound
One of the early phonetic skills you can work on with a toddler is isolating the first sound in a word (this is the first sound, not the first letter). We did this throughout the day starting around 2. One simple way we practiced this would be me using the first sound of a word in a hint as he was trying to think of something. So, for example, if he was trying to remember what we had for breakfast and we had pancakes I might go “/p/ /p/.” Of course, I wouldn’t belabor this but I found this little first sound clue often helped him come up with the word on his own while practicing those sound isolation skills.
We later moved to playing I Spy games with first sounds. We would do this at the dinner table or wherever we were. You can absolutely do it with set materials as Montessori-style shelfwork, but we rarely did. More commonly I would do something like say “I spy a food that starts with the sound /m/” and he would excitedly say “mushrooms!”
Eventually, we moved on to him being able to isolate the first sound himself. This was a fun game to play out and about. I would simply say a word and he would tell me the first sound it started with.
If your child is not interested in isolating sounds yet you can also practice the skill of listening and distinguishing by distinguishing bird sounds, different types of instruments, or other noises. This might not seem as much of “prereading” but it also works on useful auditory discrimination skills.
Rhyming
Another useful pre-reading skill you can work on with your toddler is rhyming. This starts with an introduction to rhyming books and, well, rhymes. I actually noticed with my son we had a bit of a lack of rhyming books so I purchased some more. Introducing nursery rhymes is a great way to practice rhyming as well.
Once my son grasped rhyming, we had so much fun with it. I would choose a word and he would rhyme words with it. We would go back and forth listing as many rhymes as we could think of. Eventually, we were able to practice by combining rhyming with first sound. For example, I would say “what word starts with /m/ and rhymes with cat?” He would then say “mat.” This wordplay shows a deeper understanding of language and helps tremendously with early reading.
We also had a rhyming puzzle and I made rhyming clip cards. Once my son got into rhyming he went through a period where rhyming activities were his absolute favorite.
Clapping Syllables
Syllables are important in understanding words and eventually reading. I will note with my son he grasped syllables very well around 2.5 but then when he first started reading around 3 he seemed to no longer grasp them. This was a bit confusing to me and he did learn them again, but I wished we had done more practice throughout!
Clapping syllables can easily be done throughout the day with a toddler. Simply choose a word and clap out the syllables. Let them choose a word. Clap out words you see throughout the day. You can also use a drum or another instrument to add more fun to it. My son also enjoyed jumping out syllables which is a great way to get your child moving!
Alliteration
Another prereading skill you can work on with your toddler is alliteration. This is another way to play with sounds. Introduce nursery rhymes such as Peter Piper. In everyday life you can also just make your own alliterations. This is one of the reasons though that nursery rhymes can be great for prereading! I would point out alliterations when I noticed them. This didn’t mean making a big deal about it but saying things like “oh notice how all of those words start with the same sound. That’s called alliteration!” (I am a huge fan of giving children the actual language for these things early.)
Compound Words
I made my own compound word cards but they are available for purchase as well (I later got Project Based Primary’s phonics course and found she has some). Compound words are a wonderful way to allow your toddler to play with words and language. In our reading program compound words were the first two-syllable words my son learned to read. But before reading, these allow your child to break up a larger word and hear how two words come together.
You can do this verbally but my son really enjoyed matching two photos together with a compound word photo. So, for example, he would match a photo of a cup and a photo of a cake to make cupcake. My son loved this activity at around 2.5.
Understanding How Print Works
Another part of reading you can work on before introducing the alphabet or actual reading is an understanding of how print works. In Montessori activities are set up going from left to right to give children subconscious practice with this eye movement of left to right (this is opposite if your writing is written right to left!). For example, a transferring activity will be set up for transferring from left to right.
You can also point out parts of the book and ask your child if they know where you start reading while you read to them. I trace the words while I read which I believe is very helpful as well for giving my children more understanding of how print works. Also, my understanding is that when children do start to read, tracing words is a very good skill for them to practice in their own reading. As such, I like modeling it!
Read to Your Toddler
Alright, this is probably obvious, but reading to your toddler is so incredibly important. We spend a lot of time reading and always have. My second child is more active than my first was but that doesn’t mean I don’t read to her all the time as well. Sometimes she is moving around as I read or I will read to her as she has a snack or is on the potty. If you have a very active child it is okay if they are still moving around while you read. You can also find times such as potty, bathtime, or snack time when they are sitting to read to them.
The Alphabet
I wanted this blog post to focus on prereading besides the alphabet but, obviously, knowing the alphabet is also a prereading skill. I want to stress though I do not think this should be pushed. I often see this being the first prereading skill people try to jump to with a young toddler. I see it as more of the last one once they are interested. Of course, that doesn’t mean avoiding exposure to the alphabet though!
Starting around 2.5 I offered sound sorts and alphabet baskets on the shelf (basically a basket with a sandpaper letter and objects starting with the letter). These were rarely gravitated towards and, to be honest, I don’t think these offered him much. They just ended up staying out because in that period I didn’t rotate the shelf enough. In the several months I had the letters M, A, and T on the shelf he learned maybe one of the letters. But once he was actually ready and interested (this was a couple months before he turned 3) he learned them all within a couple of weeks. I do think these can be useful though for a child who is showing interest in the alphabet. My son tends to learn things a little untraditionally and instead of repetition helping him learn he generally suddenly becomes interested and learns things instantly when he is. So while those things on the shelf didn’t help him so much, they might be more helpful for another child.
That said, I think exposure to the alphabet is very useful. I had alphabet puzzles, a few alphabet books (never our focus because I think there are much better books available), and alphabet bath toys. I would occasionally point out letters in everyday life. Though we did not introduce this book until he already knew many letters, my daughter who is far from learning her letters, loves this kinesthetic alphabet book I got for my son. I think the exposure to the alphabet is important for sparking that initial interest in learning it.
Once he became interested in the alphabet he was very interested and I introduced lots of alphabet activities. You can read about ones we did here. I had planned to do a letter or a few letters a week with him. That didn’t end up happening because he picked all the letters up within a few weeks but these alphabet activities are a really fun way to practice the alphabet. Most children do need lots of repetition to learn the letters. Note: we did letter sounds AND names at the same time. Montessori generally does sounds first. I do encourage reading a bit more on Science of Reading, however. Current research does recommend doing both at the same time. Personally, I was so glad I did as we moved from short vowel sounds to long vowel sounds with my son. This book provides some of the arguments for why to do both.
In terms of the alphabet song: we never actually introduced it but it is on one of the tracks of his Toniebox. He surprised us one day by randomly singing the whole thing. I was surprised how helpful it was in allowing him to match letters with their sounds. Other than c which he assumed said /s/ and maybe one other letter, he actually matched most of the sounds on his own just from the song. The alphabet song also is very helpful for alphabetizing. He sings it when he is trying to alphabetize something (as do I haha!).
My next blog post in this series will focus on how I taught actual reading and what resources we liked for that! There are a couple other resources I would like to guide people towards for prereading though. We didn’t get either of these resources until my son was already reading but they both have prereading content I would have loved. The first is All About Reading Pre-Reading. I cannot speak from experience of this particular level since my son was ready for level 1 when we started All About Reading, but I adore the All About Reading program. I will talk more about it in later blog posts, but my son is now in level 3 and absolutely thriving. With future children, I hope to use the pre-reading program as well. Their materials are so easy to teach and overall just wonderful! The second is Project Based Primary Raising Little Readers. She gifted this to me when Y was already reading CVC words but I would have loved to have it earlier! The pre-reading skills are laid out in a great format and it includes lots of printables. I especially wished I’d used her syllable practice suggestions earlier.
