Teaching Zac to read

Funny ZZ story:
I picked him up from preschool yesterday and the teacher was giggling at me. She said that she had spent last week helping him write his name. He'd write a Z, then she'd write A-C-H for him to trace since his name was so long. Then he'd happily run off to play.

Didn't take long for her to realize that, um... YES, he could write his name. Among many other things. Ha!

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Anyways, I've been asked several times how Zac learned to read. Thought I'd write a little about it, in case anyone else is interested. If not, then it will be for me to remember with SG. :)

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At 2.5, Zachariah already loved to learn. Here he is in July 2007 saying the pledge...

I think most kids love to learn at this age. And they REALLY love when mom will sit with them and DO something with them.

So, I bought the DVD: Leap Frog Letter Factory. Someone had recommended to me to play it every single day for one week. I watched it with him. We laughed and sang it through it together.... even though it was not very enjoyable for me! (rather than just sitting him in front of it, or playing it in the car)

After that, we would see an S on a stop sign and sing the letter S song from the video. Stuff like that. We also spelled/sang the spelling of his name all the time. I bought a dry-erase board at Walmart that had the alphabet on it. Using a dry-erase marker was a *special* privilege. He loved when he got to sit and trace these letters.

By his third birthday, he could write the letters (barely legible...ha!). He could write his name, but I'd have to coach him through the order of the letters.

We had the next Leap Frog movie - Word Factory.

After his party, we sat and wrote his thank-you notes for his 3rd birthday together.

I saw that teaching him to spell (phonetically) was way easier than teaching him to read. It made sense that learning HOW words were put together would mean that I wouldn't have to "teach him how to read." He would be able to figure it out himself. So, that's what we did - writing.

Here is his name at 3yrs, 2 mos:



Here we are at 3yrs, 4mos... this is an example of how we would spell together....

I did not care if letters were backwards, how he spelled it, etc. He'd draw a picture and we'd label it. He'd help me write "goldfish" on my grocery list. Random stuff like that.


At this point, I was pointing to words as we read each night. Sometimes I'd pretend I didn't know it, and I'd sound it out. Sometimes I'd stop at words like "the" or "and" or other words he'd know from memory.


We had the BOB books and tried to read them often.

Here he is reading a bob book at 3yrs, 6 mos...

Spelling at 3 yrs, 11 mos...

At 4 yrs old he was reading fluently. I have a video.... but it's a torturously long Dr. Suess book read slowly.... just take my word for it)

By this time, he definitely preferred typing over writing with his hand. (still does) Writing required way too much work for him...ha! But, that doesn't bother me at all. Either way, he was learning. :)

His 4th year, we went through a LOT of Star Wars books. They had some great "first reader" type books. And they had some tough words in there! It was great practice. One time, I cut/pasted a bunch of star wars pictures onto a word document. Zac typed a little blurb under each picture. We printed it out and it was a favorite "book" for a while.

By 4 yrs 6 mos, I knew he was ready for chapter books, but didn't know where to start. I bought the Star Wars ones, but they were over his head. He didn't want Junie B. Jones. And I didn't want him to discover Captain Underpants just yet. Plus, he really wasn't thrilled about reading a book that didn't have pictures on every page.

Someone recommended A-Z Mysteries, and we have really enjoyed those. They are interesting/funny enough for him to overlook the lack of pictures (they are about every 4th page). And even though it's labeled for grades 2-4, it's a great chapter book series for young kids.

He still reads out loud. In fact, we just talked this week about the whole concept of reading "to yourself." He loves the interaction while reading aloud with me, though... so I don't see him reading by himself anytime soon. He's a people person, and it's one-on-one time with me.

Anyways, so that's where we are now. Started with letter sounds, moved to writing, and reading happened easily after that.

Would I recommend teaching early? YES YES YES

I caught him early enough when he was still willing, ready, excited to learn, as opposed to now when he is 5 going on 25. He starts Kindergarten in 8 months, and I know he will feel very confident about school early on.