Building language and reading books to your children is important, but it’s not enough to teach them to read. When students enter school, they will learn to turn the printed strings of letters on the page into words. This is easier for some children than others. Families and caregivers can prepare their children by helping them learn about speech sounds, letter names, letter sounds, and how letters blend together to make words. This can be done by learning songs, playing games, and asking children to read books with words that have letter sounds they know so they can sound them out (see decodable texts section).
Learning Games
Games to Support Early Literacy Skills – Rhode Island Department of Education
REL Southeast Family Involvement Guides
Florida Center for Reading Research Student Activities
Strong Readers: Mississippi
Louisiana Believes: Family Literacy and Engagement
Literacy at Home: Digital Children’s Literacy Initiative
Decodable Books
Decodable books let beginning readers practice using letter sounds to decode (sound out) words. They help children focus on letters and sounds instead of guessing from pictures. With practice, decoding becomes accurate and automatic. Decodable books are not intended for read‑alouds; picture books and other children’s fiction or nonfiction with rich vocabulary are better for that.
Practices to Avoid
The best way for children to learn to read is by learning letter sounds and using them to sound out new words. With that in mind, avoid the following methods:
- Do not use flashcards with your child to memorize words
- Do not practice reading with early-reader texts that repeat common words over and over or call for your child to look at the picture to figure out the words
Neither of these strategies allows children to apply letter sounds to print, and they often lead to guessing based on the pictures, the first letters in words, or memorizing words based on how they look rather than sounding them out. These methods do NOT follow the scientific research that tells us how the brain best learns to read.
Resources
A Parent’s Guide to Decodable Text
The Reading League’s Decodable Text Sources
UFLI Decodable Text Passages
Learning letter sounds and how to use them to decode words is essential to teach and practice in ways that align with the science of reading, but it is not the only reading skill that must be taught. Developing vocabulary, oral language, sentence structure, writing, background knowledge, comprehension strategies, and many other aspects are important, too.