How to Make Learning to Read Fun

We are now at the time where I am teaching my son how to read! I taught my daughter how to read two years ago and now, she is an amazing reader. Learning to read can be frustrating (for the parent AND the child) and today, I want to share some of my tips for making reading fun, including how we use Noggin for learning how to read. My son is 4 years old and knows all of his letter sounds, plus letter recognition and how to write. He will be in preschool in the fall and in kindergarten the following year as a reference. 

First Steps for Learning How to Read

I knew that Oliver was ready to start reading because he had mastered letter sounds and recognition. Plus, age 4 is when we started with my daughter so I knew it would be about that time soon. We start very simple and then build on that. When it is time to start practicing reading, we start with super basic two letter words like in, me, he, my, it, is, etc. and sound them out slowly.  This helps the kids learn how to put letter sounds together and helps them gain confidence with reading. We do high fives after each word and make a little list of how many words we read.

As they get better with this, we move onto other three and four letter words such as sight words and rhyming words. One day, we did all "an" words. Another day, we did words that rhyme with "op". This helps a lot with reading confidence as well. We also focused on different phonics sounds such as "sh" and "th" sounds. When we come to a hard word that you can't just sound out like "why", we make up a song and dance for it to make it fun to learn! My son lives for this. After this was mastered, we moved onto sounding out words in basic books which is where we are at right now.

Learning to Read with Noggin

The only show Oliver ever wants to watch is PAW Patrol. He is obsessed!! When I heard about Noggin and how they have learning programs with the PAW Patrol characters, I knew that I had to get it for Oliver. Learning with PAW Patrol helps motivate him so much. Noggin not only has PAW Patrol but lots of Nick Jr. characters like Bubble Guppies, Dora the Explorer, Blaze & The Monster Machines, Blue's Clues, Peppa Pig and more.

Noggin helps children learn emotionally, cognitively, physically and socially. It is a subscription based service that helps kids learn with their favorite Nick. Jr. characters. They have eBooks, interactive learning games, digital coloring books, physical activities and more. It is super fun for my son -  we sit down and slowly sound out the words in the books. If the word is bigger than he can read right now, I read the word for him. They also have a game that is a sight word challenge which helps him learn sight words. This app is changing our lives!!

Adalyn loves helping teach her brother to read!