Teaching your 3 year old to Read – Cheap!

I would like to share with you how I teach my 3 year olds to read.

My oldest daughter picked up a book when she was 3 years old (hat on rat) and sounded out the words, and read the book!

I was so impressed, I took a video of it! But that was 10+ years ago, and when my phone died, I didn’t have a backup for my photos and videos. So I can’t show anyone.

Fast Forward to my current 3 year old. And I took the time to record an entire lesson just for you!

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. There is so much prep work to happen before we can even dive into reading.

What You Need In Order To Teach Your Child To Read:

• Library Card/3,000 children’s books (or just 20, but reading them 3,000 times)
• ABC Program
• Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons – Cheap!
• PATIENCE
• 1-3 years of one on one time with your child for 30 minutes or more a day.

How to prepare your Toddler to be able to read.

First, I’d like to talk about what I did to make my children ready to start reading. These are simple, but ESSENTIAL!

First. They need to know their Alphabet.

They need to be able to point to an A (upper AND lowercase) and say the name A.

I did this with my first child by getting a lot of Alphabet books from my library (like Dr. Seusses’ ABCs) and any ABC videos that they had as well.

I would sing the abc song over and over with her. There are even a few different versions out there on youtube.

And did you know, that if you sang Dr. Seuss’s ABC book, to the tune of the classic ABC song, that it works perfectly? Try it!

Second, Reading To Your Child.

Now, this was not the only thing I was doing with my 18 month old at the time. My daughter was obsessed with picture books, and she would pull all the books off of the shelf and bring me stacks and stacks of them. Then she would settle onto my lap, and would stay there till I read her every. single. one. of. them.

I had about a dozen of my own, and then we’d add to it whatever we had gotten from the library. . . I could be easily reading 30 books A DAY to my child.

Now, I am not an expert in child development in any way. But I do try to listen to experts.

But this information that I’m about to share, is total hearsay, and if anyone reading knows where the source comes from, please let me know!

So I was chatting with my sister-in-law, and she had said that she had heard (like I said, hearsay) that a child needed to have 3,000 books read to them before they are ready to read.

To be honest, the number might have been less, like 1,000. But I THINK she said 3,000.

Well, 30 books a day times 100 days. . . BOOM! 3,000 books!

So as you can see, these things can take a lot of prep work, patience and TIME!!!

Third, Attaching Letters in a Creative and Exciting Way.

The other thing I did for both my 3 year olds. . . is I did a preschool-style of teaching for each of the letters.

My first one, I found an amazing book at a yard sale, and we followed the book. following the matching games, singing the songs with the puppets, and finally, making each letter animal with construction paper, scissors and glue. The first time around, she was happy cutting random pieces, and me doing the actual work.

Then we would take the animal letter up to her room, and she would put it on the wall.

When we finished Z. She said we weren’t done, that they all needed their babies (lowercase). So we re-did all the letters with lowercase (it took a bit of creativity on my part). But this time, she was ready to do more cutting, coloring, gluing etc.

Sadly, the company does not print this exact book anymore. This is the website to their business with the closest product that I used. And they do have a few good songs on their youtube channel.

For my other child, we just had a preschool co-op where each parent took one month to come up with a 2 hour lesson once a week. And each week featured one letter.

In the end, it meant that my children knew each letter back and forth, and LOVED them! And they both knew a bunch of words associated with each letter (like A- Alligator B-Butterfly etc).

Bonus: Apps – Knowing what each sound makes

Apps were a pretty new thing with my daughter. But we did put on this simple phonics one, that she played with sometimes in the car.

My other child, loves the teach your monster how to read app (although he can’t play all the games yet)

Since I had never introduced phonics to my first, this was the only thing that could have taught her the Sounds that each letter made.

My Middle Child

Before I go any farther, I do have to say that I have 3 children. My second child, although brilliant (started crawling up stairs at 5 months old). Was a mover. I had the HARDEST time getting him to sit still long enough to read more than one book at a time.

I finally figured out that right when he woke up, he was willing to cuddle in my lap for a good 10 minutes while he was still groggy. So I could get in maybe 3 books a day. That is a far cry from the 30 that I read to his older sister.

And although I did start the 100 easy lessons with him when he was 3. It took a long and slow road for us to finish it. We didn’t finish the lesson book till he was 5. We did a lot of repeat lessons, and taking breaks if he got frustrated.

Still, even after we finished the book, he wasn’t fully reading till he was six. . . When I had also gotten a personal tutor for him – The sweetest retired teacher from our church who asked if she could teach him to read. She had at her disposal, besides years of experience, plenty of resources for children who preferred to move when they learned.

This goes to show that READING to your child is essential, but it also shows that teaching your child to read is a long game. One that may take 3-6 YEARS!

I made sure I didn’t push him. The last thing I wanted was for him to hate reading. We redid lessons, which went well. We went really slowly, and he did get the hang of it.

When I say that he didn’t read till 6, I mean that he was still stuck in the sounding out stage, things hadn’t clicked in his brain yet, and reading was still a burden.

But age 6 is still a great age to be reading!

Now on to Actually teaching your 3 year old how to read.

Once my daughter picked up and read that simple book at age 3, I went to the library to try and find some sort of phonics teaching book.

Instead, I found a book called Teach your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons.

I loved the idea that I could put a number on when my child could read.

So I got it from the library. . . and later, my mother-in-law gave me a copy to keep.

since 100 lessons is far too many to get through before having to return the book to the library, this is the one thing that I insist on you buying! But it is FAR CHEAPER than any other reading program out there! you literally only need the book. So go ahead and order it now!

If you are teaching an older child (4-6) this book is perfect! All you have to do is sit the child next to you, and read out loud the lines that are in red, then have the child read the big words. Follow each instruction. And by the end, your child can read! It really works!!!!

Now, a 3-4 year old, is a little different, and I found I had to change a few things up in order for it to work.

Tips on Using this book for 3 year olds.

First thing to remember, is that you have a toddler on your hands.

If you make this experience miserable for the child, they will make it miserable for you.

second thing to remember is that your primary purpose should be to build a relationship with your child, and your secondary purpose is to teach them to read while building this relationship.

What this means is, PATIENCE PATIENCE PATIENCE

And enjoy the journey that is your child’s mind.

These lessons have the potential to go on for A VERY LOOOOONG TIME! (AKA YEARS!)

But if you become short with your temper, or try too hard to keep them on track, at the cost of your child’s enjoyment, you’ll be doing more harm than good.

You need to know that this isn’t going to be easy, But it will be worth it, for your relationship, and for your child’s education later.

My six year old daughter read over 120 chapter books between the age of 5 and 6. And she’s crazy intelligent now. Reading at a high school level at age 10.

Tips To keep your toddler engaged in learning to read.

Where to start?

I made this video to help show just how much of an investment of time and patience each and every lesson will be for you.

I tried to put most of my tips of ‘teaching your 3 year old how to read’ into practice in the 30 minute long lesson I did with my son.

1. It’s ok to sound out the words yourself. As long as your child is looking at the words, and is understanding what you are saying.
2. Repetition is key. I use my own finger, and repeat the words that he has already read many times in the lesson. Each time I do, it will create a stronger memory in his mind.
3. Letter and word association helps. Learning A says AAH, like in Alligator or a surprise AAH! Makes them laugh and enjoy the words. Help them come up with other words that start with AAH. . . Or when they start to read words, Associate that word with sentences that they know. Like A-N-T! ant like antman! or S-I-T sit like come sit with me on the couch!
4. It’s ok for them to move around. They are still in the toddler stage! Jumping up and down, reading it sideways, looking at the words, then looking away. . . fiddling with stuff in their hands. . . etc.
5. Let them follow their thoughts for a while, and only when appropriate, bring them gently back to the book “Ant-man, I love superheroes like superman, batman. . . ” and when they are done, you say “yes awesome! So remember this word, A-N-T. . . “
6. The lessons are really easy at the beginning. Don’t try to keep going longer than the lesson. They will be getting too hard soon enough.
7. It’s ok to go slow, and to repeat earlier/easier lessons when they are having a hard time. Remember, they are already ahead of the curve, you can let them take their time.
8. At some point, they will get tired of repeating the easy letter sounds. It’s ok for you to do those parts instead. But make sure they are still engaged. One way I like to do that, is play the “I forgot” game. Where I point to A, and say “ssss” and then ask the child if I was right. “No mom, that’s AAH” “oh yeah, I forgot”.
9. The matching game is another one that my kids love. Finding the same sound or the same word on the same page.
10. At some point, whether it is because it gets tedious to them, or because it starts getting hard.. . we need to get a little creative in getting them excited about reading.
    1. Bribery/Reward. “Do you want to do a reading lesson? you get a hershey kiss when you are done!”
    2. New Student – aka toy/stuffed animal. “Can you teach your toy dinosaur to read?”
    3. New Student. “Can your dinosaur read the lesson to you? (toddler pretends that the dinosaur is reading)
    4. A different teacher. “Daddy wants to hear you read a lesson today”
    5. New place. “Let’s go outside to read the lesson”
    6. Small goals. “Let’s read 2 words, then dance, then read 2 more words.
    7. Small goals #2. Put Cheerios on each word on the book. whenever they finish a word, they get to eat the cheerio!
    8. Praise them for every little thing!
    9. Praise them to other people when they are around “You should hear your grandson, He can read so well!”

This is a long journey that you have chosen to take with your child, but it is worth it.

Good luck with teaching your 3 year old to read (or at whatever age you have). And please come back and tell me how it went, and if you have any extra tips that can help the next parent who is teaching their child to read!

Remember to grab your own copy of Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy lessons Here!