Our Homeschooling Journey: Teaching Toddlers How to Read

One of my plans before was to send my daughter to a preschool and then continue her education with homeschooling afterward. The reason behind this was that I was feeling overwhelmed even before we started our homeschooling journey. Just like any other endeavor, the first steps are the hardest. A lot of questions and uncertainties kept running in my mind. How do I teach a child how to read or how to write? Where do I start? How do I begin?

Then, by sharing my thoughts and reading through the homeschooling articles in the Home Edders Community, and browsing through the Homeschooling groups on Facebook, I learned about play-based learning. At first, it was completely perplexing. I have no idea what to do. Until I started and then soon got the hang of it. This learning and teaching style is highly effective in stimulating a child's brain. Even when I think she might not pay attention, my daughter shows interest in our "topics" and even pitches in her own ideas. We are actually going somewhere.

And then we got to the part where she shows that she is ready to go to the next level. How do I know this? She's starting to grab books on the bookshelf. She asks me if I would like to read her the story. She even repeats the words I read to her from the book. At the back of my head, I am feeling ecstatic, she is displaying a huge interest in learning how to read. That's when I start to feel the pressure. I really want her to learn how to read because once she knows how to read, a lot of doors will open to her. She can discover new worlds in so many different books. Knowledge is power and that power could only be unlocked by learning how to read. So I ask myself again. How do I teach her how to read? There are tons of words in the dictionary, where do I begin?

It is only right that I match her level of enthusiasm however, I did not want to overwhelm her. I did that when we were starting out last year. I made her dive deep right away, she got scared and lost her interest for a short while. It might just be a matter of luck that she was able to gain interest again in reading. I do not want to make that same mistake again. This time, I need to be very careful in approaching the subject matter.

Communities and groups are very helpful in this part of our homeschooling journey. I had no background in child psychology nor do I have a degree in education. But that did not stop me from wanting to push through with homeschooling. I found out very useful techniques in teaching toddlers how to read. I had tutored a couple of kids from years ago but I haven't taught from scratch. I was sure this was going to be an enormous undertaking that will require passion and commitment. And it was. But the fruits of the labor are very very sweet indeed.

Here are some of the things that I learned in teaching toddlers how to read.

1. Don't focus on teaching the alphabet. At first, this did not make sense to me. I mean I'm trying to teach my kid how to read. Naturally, I assumed that having her memorize the letters of the alphabet was the first step. And by the time I found this out, she had already memorized all the letters. But we still moved on and tried the initial step which is learning the sounds of each letter. Since she has learned all the letters, it was hard for her to unlearn the letters and replace them with the sounds when we started to learn how to read. After a lot of practice, she was able to familiarize herself with phonics. When we recite the alphabet, instead of simply saying each letter, (A, B, C, D...) we changed it to A-a-apple, B-b-boy, C-c-cat, D-d-dog, and so on and so forth. Soon, she was reciting the alphabet through the sounds.
2. During playtime, sound as many three-letter words as you can. She has a stuffed toy dog and whenever I hold it, I say /d/-/o/-/g/, dog! We do it with /c/-/a/-/t/, cat, too. All around the house, there are a lot of three-letter words that we sound the letters. I sometimes sound like a TV show character when we play and I say *"Hi, I'm a cat, /c/-/a/-/t/, CAT! I have prepared flashcards at this point but I only hint it to her very subtly, displayed in plain sight but not too obvious because I was scared she might not like to read at all.
3. When she was already familiarized with phonics and she's already used to sounding each letter of the three-letter words, that's when I introduced the flashcards. At first, the words were random because I had no idea what I was doing exactly. Then a friend recommended using rhyming words for letter blending. And that's what I did with my flashcards.
   -at: bat, cat, rat
   -et: vet, set, pet
   -ot: not, hot, cot
   The flashcards were pretty nifty actually. Since did not have a printer yet at that time, I used her old milk cartons and manually just wrote those letters and grouped the flashcards according to the last two letters.
4. Reading is Fun! That's what my daughter always says when I ask her why she loves reading. I usually find her in bed holding a book. She's just looking at the pictures but I can see her trying to read the words that she can read. I can't remember if I psyched her into loving reading or if she really did love reading. She loves reading the books that I bought back when I was pregnant with her. I did not know back then that I was already pregnant but every time I pass by the mall from the office back then, I can't help but buy those kiddie books.
5. Allocate at least ten minutes of reading time every day. I have put her bookshelf to a location where she can easily grab any book she wants to read/browse at any time. That was originally meant to make sure her interest in reading does not waiver. Now that she is able to read more and more words, I placed her reading practice books on spots that are more easily accessible for her.

Different kids have varying learning curves and learning styles. These tips may prove effective to some but not to others. I was just a clueless beginner homeschooling mom, I still am clueless and definitely still new in the game but these things definitely helped me and my daughter in our homeschooling journey. Teaching toddlers how to read will unquestionably test your patience and commitment but once you hear them reading those words slowly at first and trying to show off their new skill, it is totally worth it.

_{@romeskie is a full-time stay-at-home mom to a homeschooling toddler. Loves crocheting as a hobby. Maintains a mini food forest, aiming to grow more to achieve that farm-to-table homesteading. Learned how to cook after leaving the corporate world to take care of her family and is now starting to acquire basic baking skills. Learn more about her adventures and misadventures in the world of motherhood.
Connect with her through her Facebook Page: The Leftie Crocheter and on Instagram. Feel free to subscribe to her Youtube Channel: The Leftie Crocheter}