Why read literature classics?

In a nutshell, reading literature classics opens up a new perspective to discover other worlds, especially historically speaking. Many stories surround a particular event that happened during a specific time and use the basis of overcoming trials to depict the story.

Reading literature classics can also help you build a family reading time. Some homeschoolers choose to include these types of stories in their morning baskets and set aside 15 to 20 minutes to read them as a family every day.

Regardless of how you choose to include literature classics in your homeschool, consider the following 10 titles that everyone should read.

10 Favorite Literature Classics

1. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
   Considered an unforgettable classic for children of any age, this story tells of a group of boys who once enjoyed their freedom far from civilization… that is until natural instincts of supremacy kick in.
2. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
   Written back in 1881, this story is set in a time of sailing ships and pirates. The adventurer, Jim Hawkins, is on a search for buried treasure of an evil pirate, Captain Flint.
3. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
   Especially for the dog lovers, this is a story about a dog named Buck who was stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog. Forced to fight other dogs to survive, Buck shows his ability to rise and overcome.
4. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
   This classic story combines friendship with danger to show just how much can happen in the life of a pig. Saved from being slaughtered, it was a message written in Charlotte’s spider web that helped save Wilbur’s life.
5. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
   Written with the theme good versus evil in mind, the story of Oliver Twist is centered on an orphan sold into apprenticeship who then joins a not-so-good group of boys. One of his ill-intentions lands him into the hands of someone who actually cares and offers him a good chance in life.
6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
   Highlighting past racial injustice in the South, this story is one based on the attempts to prove the innocence of Tom Robinson, a black man who has been wrongly accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama.
7. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
   Set in the late 19th century, this story is about an 11-year-old orphan girl who is mistakenly sent to help them on a farm in the fictional town of Avonlea on Prince Edward Island and struggles to be accepted by the locals.
8. Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat
   Based on a true account, Mowat shares his experience observing wolves in subarctic Canada and why the local caribou population is declining, believed due to indiscriminate wolf-pack attacks.
9. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson
   This non-fiction classic recounts Stevenson’s 12-day, 120 mile solo hiking journey through the barely populated and impoverished areas of the Cévennes mountains in south-central France in 1878.
10. Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
    Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell’s personal account of his experiences and observations fighting for the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War.

With this great list of favorite literature classics, which one will you be reading first?

The post Favorite Literature Classics Everyone Should Read first appeared on True Aim.

Most of the time once we’ve moved on from a particular chapter or page, we wouldn’t dare even think about going back to it to see what we’ve missed. When we don’t look backwards in books, we miss key details. Therefore, we’re only getting a piece of the entire puzzle of the material that we’ve previously read.

Summer Reading Strategy: Read Those Missed Pages For More Information

Homeschooling 7 children is definitely no easy task. We do a lot of group reading and have many oral discussions. Since so much time is spent on those particular areas, we tend to skip some things in our reading at the moment that we don’t deem to be useful or helpful to our discussion or assignment.

Once the summer time rolls around, I often think of reading material that I feel my kids would enjoy in those 2 months that we lighten our school load. Summer reading is a great way for them to keep their knowledge of vocabulary and comprehension skills sharp.

One day a light bulb went off for me as I pondered a summer reading list for them. Why not just have them use the same books for the summer that we used during reading class? Nothing extra to buy and nothing extra to assign that they weren’t already familiar with. Perfect idea. For example, in history we’d covered the Middle Ages in 2 chapters in our book. I didn’t find it to be relevant at the time to cover the list of wars or the endless list of names of people listed that went over and beyond the few people we’d already covered.

The perfect time to read and learn the list would be the summer months. They could also flip back and read the chapter we skipped about a lot of wars in the past. We’d covered almost 10 in class, but hey, learning more during the summer wouldn’t hurt at all.

In science we had skimmed our chapters on oceans because we’d studied them in the past. Well, I had them to go back and read about the various underwater volcanoes and formation of islands because we didn’t cover that part in class. Since the children were already familiar with a bit of oceanography, them going back to read the missed information was pertinent to completing their mental picture about oceans. There were a lot of interesting facts that they came to me with and discussed once they went back to read the pages independently.

In our literature class, we’d studied a few poets from the southern part of the US. The children were delighted to flip through their poetry books and read about the few poets that we didn’t cover. That led to them looking into their biographies of those famous writers. My kids even took it upon themselves to go and find books that we didn’t complete a few years ago and chose their own pages to read over. It was amazing how much initiative that they took to read without my input.

LEARN NEW DETAILS IN SUMMER READING

I couldn’t believe all of the little facts and details that we missed in our plight of trying to get school done and touch on all the basic skills. It’s a simple process. I told my kids to “Go find the books that we used in class and find the skipped chapters.” From that little instruction, they became totally independent readers in those moments that it was too hot to play outside. They were reading books that I had forgotten all about. It’s worked wonders for us and keeps the kids constantly learning new facts and new words.

We now do oral reviews after they’ve read something new and their recall is amazing. They see me involved but in a way they’re choosing what to learn. We use summer reading to serve 2 purposes; Read for information and read to complete the lessons from before. I will never change the way we do summer reading at our house now. It’s perfect for our family.

Can you think of a way to utilize those skipped reading sections in your child’s summer reading? I’d love to read your replies in the comment section. Thanks so much for reading this!

Tal Hoover is the founder of Blessed Grove Homeschooling and Academy. She is a professional educator, curriculum writer and homeschooling mother of 7 children. Her spare time is spent creating and publishing educational resources and operating her small baking business. She has over 14 years of home education under her belt, and nearly a decade of experience in tutoring, online education, and writing. Tal specializes in teaching Biblical and world history, multicultural studies, comparative religions, art history, and of course, professional artisan cookie decorating. She has a bachelor’s degree in Leadership and also holds multiple certificates. Mission work, mentoring and empowering not only her own family, but others is her top priority. She loves connecting with those that are seeking to educate their own children and become entrepreneurs to promote self-sufficiency.

blessedgrovehomeschooling.com
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The post Unique Summer Reading Strategy for Homeschoolers! first appeared on True Aim.

Sound-it-out does not always work. Parents have forgotten helpful reading strategies and are no longer aware of using them. One example is rereading.

Rereading a word or sentence often clarifies what was just read. Adults do this without thinking about rereading as a comprehension strategy.

Help for Early Readers

Sound-it-out uses isolated sounds to read a word. Take my name, for instance. Carolyn would be ca-air-oh-lul-ya-nin. Try pronouncing that all together, and the result is nothing like my name. The word “math” sounds out to mum-ah-tah-huh. Isolated letter sounds alone do not comprise most words. There are just too many irregular words and letter blends for sound-it-out to be the only strategy, for even beginning readers.

Do children need phonics? Yes. Do children need to simply memorize sight words? Yes. Phonics is more than isolated letter-sound combinations. For instance, think of words that begin with stra (strawberry, stranger, strategy) and it is easy to see sounding out s-t-r-a for each word would require too much time.

There are many letter combinations children will learn, and some with have different sounds than isolated letter sounds, such as kn (knight, knee, knob). There are silent letters and special sounds for letter combinations. Frequently, q is usually followed by u, so the sound for qu must be taught (queen, quick, quack).

Another common assumption is that a child knows his or her letters by practicing capital letters. Most of reading is actually lower-case letters. Lower case letters should be taught before capital letters. Capital letters will be learned as children learn to write names, proper nouns, and begin writing sentences. A child who knows only “big” letters is not ready to learn to read. Lower case letters and their sounds are important to know.

Word-solving Strategies Beyond Sound-it-out to Use with Beginning Readers

The reason children need to know more word-solving strategies than sound-it-out is so they begin to self-correct when reading. A child who cannot self-correct while reading is not going to make as much progress as a child who can do so.

At school, if a child was reading aloud and stopped reading perhaps five or six times during one paragraph, I knew an adult at home was jumping in to tell the word to the child. Telling a child words is quick and easy, but will not help children to learn how to help themselves.

Yes, I told words sometimes. English language learners, newly emergent readers, and a child who had tried some strategies and was frustrated are some cases when I told a word. However, as a steady diet, telling children words does not help advance reading skills. There are many word-solving strategies that help for early readers. Every child will not “take” to every strategy, and should use the ones that make sense to that child. Here are a few to try.

1. Skippy Frog

Skip it, skip it, then go back and read it. Adults do this, also. When reading a news article or new information and finding an unknown word, we do not stop and give up. We do not put down the book, article, or newspaper. We keep reading.

This word-solving strategy is one children understand and like to use. I think it is second to sound-it-out. When reading, maybe the child puts a finder on the unknown word, finishes reading the sentence, and then goes back to try the whole sentence again.

This is reading a word in context as meaning is important in reading. Some children equate reading “fast” with being a “good” reader, so it is important to tell children that good readers use what they know to learn what they do not know.

2. Stretchy Snake

Look at all the letters in the word before saying it out loud. When a child gets to the first letter of an unknown word and stops reading, the child is not looking through the whole word. He or she has not learned to self-correct and gives up. Somehow the child knows the word is difficult or unknown and will say the first letter.

In this case, the child must be encouraged to look at all the letters in that word. Stretchy snake is one name for this strategy. Similar to sound-it-out and is done silently (at least at first). Looking at each letter, the child whispers the sounds in his or her heads. Often, just seeing all the letters and trying some silent sounds, the child will be able to say the word.

Adults automatically puzzle over the letters in a new or unfamiliar word, and can often then read the word. Of course, adults do not think about stretch snake when using this strategy as it has become automatic.

3. Noticing Owl

Find a little word in a big word. Ahh, the dreaded syllabication strategy, but more simply stated for children to find it useful. For instance, in the word Mississippi, the child can find miss, is, and sip. A hard word becomes more manageable.

At school, this decoding strategy might be called Chunky Monkey so children will chunk the sounds together. However, for emergent readers, this could be a difficult idea.

Children delight in finding little words in big words and often show the parent or teacher such discoveries. They find the fact owls can turn their heads 180 degrees (or more) fascinating. So, a little word can become a clue towards solving an unfamiliar word. They like to imitate animals, so twisting their heads while looking through a big word can help them to understand the strategy.

Results for Early Readers!

Parents are amazed at the reading progress children can make when several word-solving strategies are used. Children will begin to self-correct and help themselves learn to read. A mistake when oral reading is an opportunity to help a child learn a new word-solving strategy. Soon, children will automatically employ several word-solving strategies and make advances in reading.

Carolyn Wilhelm is a wife, mom, and grandmother. She has a BS in Elementary Education, an MS in Special Studies of Gifted Children, and an MA in Curriculum and Instruction K-12. She was a National Board Certification Middle Childhood Generalist 2004-2014. She is also a licensed, certified teacher in Minnesota through 2021. Retired, she now volunteers at an elementary school and runs TheWiseOwlFactory.com. 

Check out More Summer Reading Ideas Here!

The post Help for Early Readers: Strategies Beyond Sound-it-Out first appeared on True Aim.

When I first became a mom, I had no idea how important reading to my child was. It wasn’t until I had a preemie that I started researching. After reading, and watching documentaries, I learned that it is one of the MOST important things you can do.

10 Ways to Reignite Your Child’s Passion for Reading!

However, some children just aren’t used to doing it. Or maybe there are so many other distractions, that they are uninterested. It could be that they used to love reading and after a few years in school, they avoid it like the plague. 

Whatever the reason your child isn’t enjoying reading as much, here are 10 creative ways to help them get excited about reading again!

1. Make a Reading Routine

This might sound counter intuitive, but building reading into your routine will help your child get used to it and learn to love it again. Sometimes, when school or other distractions come in, children forget how much they like it. Building reading time into what you are already doing will help your kids come to expect it.

When they know that you will be reading a story at a certain time of day, like during meal time or when they are in the bath or shower, they will feel like something is missing if you skip this time! It will be a welcome respite from the business of the day. They will start to request it again, especially if it is a story that they enjoy. 

2. Learn Some Book Marketing

Many parents forget that their are competing against some of the most sophisticated marketing techniques when it comes to other forms of entertainment. TV, apps, computer games, toys, they all have huge teams that put a lot of energy into making kids want to use and watch their products. We need to start getting savvy when it comes to making books look more appealing.

The way we read is one way we can market books to our kids better. If we aren’t good at reading aloud, we could invest in some high quality audio books. We could subscribe to a site that offers an audio library! Most of the time, the voice over for audio books is very well done and helps the story come alive for our children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Raising Raving Readers (@raisingravingreaders) on Mar 8, 2019 at 8:49am PST

We also need to think about the way we display books in our home. If we can make books look more appealing by displaying them in a way that attracts our children, we will catch them picking up a good book more often. Displaying the covers of books as much as possible will help with this.

Finally, we can design specific places in our home that are for reading. These spaces make children want to relax and grab a book or magazine and flip through. It’s an area that pulls everyone in and they just can’t help but read there! This may take some trial and error and also revamping from time to time, but it will be worth it!

3. Peak Their Interest with Strategic Storytelling

My husband grabbed a book off the shelf one day and called my daughter over. She didn’t really want to read, but it was something he didn’t do all the time, so she was intrigued. He started reading to her and she was captivated by the story. He got to a really exciting part of the story where someone was close to getting captured or in danger. Right before we could learn what happened, he slammed the book SHUT!

She was shocked! What was going to happen?! Hey! That’s not how you read! However, this strategic reading made her want to read the book on her own so she would discover what had happened! It was a little bit more advanced than she was used to reading, but she was determined. My husband had achieved his goal of reigniting her passion for reading!

4. Get Some Help to Ignite their Passion for Reading

You don’t always have to be the one reading to your children. Take the pressure off! Ask people for help. This could be as simple as finding a podcast that reads aloud to children, a youtube channel, an online book club, or friends and family that can read via Facetime!

Enter to Win!

5. Use Summer to Set Up for Success

During the summer, so many people are worried about summer slide. Avoiding it is easier than you think. You simply have to read! Use the summer to start a new reading routine, set up your reading spaces, go to the library more, or bring books on your road and camping trips. Take the summer to give your kids that passion for reading back!

6. Join a Book Club 

If you child is older, they might like meeting with other children to discuss a book and do activities related to it. If you don’t know of one, you could start your own! You might not be comfortable with that, so you can join our online book club and enjoy all the benefits of a regular club, but on your own time!

Check out the Raising Raving Readers Book Club!

7. Give Reading Incentives

More than chores, I would rather reward my children for reading! The ROI is huge! Not only are you going to improve their vocabulary, you are establishing how important reading is in their lives. 

Great incentives for reading are ones that encourage more reading! What does that mean? Well, it could be that the incentive is SO motivating that the child wants to do more and more of it. It could also be that the reward encourages more reading, like new books or a trip to the book store.

Whatever you choose to do for an incentive, make it really good, but moderately difficult to achieve. You could also encourage your children along by having a smaller reward related to a bigger reward so they get just a taste of success and want the whole!

8. Libraries are Your Friend

The more you can use your local library, the more your kids will love it! There are SO many fun things that libraries do. Mark all the events on your calendar so that if you don’t have much to do one day, you can make a quick trip!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Story times at the library aren’t just for little kids. A good picture book never hurt anyone. So bring your older children along and if it is too babyish for them, they can pick up a book from the young adult section!

9. Pick the Best Books

If you’ve ever purchased or borrowed books that your child doesn’t really like, you know this part can be really hard. I’ve got your back! You can follow my pinterest board for great children’s book lists, join my VIP customer group for in-depth reviews, or request a personalized book list. 

10. Monkey See Monkey Do

This is true for everything we do. Our children look up to us whether we like it or not. They can’t help it! We are their heroes. If we want them to love reading, we have to model that in our own life. Maybe we need to reignite our own passion for reading? What have you read lately that has helped you be a good example for your children?

Get More Ideas to Encourage Reading in Your Home!

The post 10 Ways to Reignite Your Child’s Passion for Reading! first appeared on True Aim.

When children enter school they are excited about reading and learning to read! However, with each grade their interest in reading drops dramatically. Why is this?

What does NOT reading to your child do?

The main culprit is that parents and teachers STOP reading to them. Reading becomes a chore for children.

They only do it to get by and get a good grade or please their teacher. They no longer associate reading with enjoyable one-on-one time. They are mandated to read material that they don’t like or that is beyond their reading level and reading begins to lose it’s magic.

How sad is that?

More importantly, what does a decreasing interest in reading do to them? The more children dislike reading, the more they dislike learning.

10 effects NOT reading can have on our children!

Here are 10 ways NOT reading to your child can have an affect on their future.

1. Reading to children at a young age helps the brain develop, not reading to your child causes the brain to develop less and can lead them to have smaller brains. (1)
2. Children who aren’t read to have lower language comprehension, smaller vocabularies, and lower cognitive skills than their peers. (2)
3. Children with less access to books and other print materials express less enjoyment of books, reading, and academics. (3)
4. Without the nurturing and one-on-one attention from parents during reading aloud children DON’T form a positive association with books and reading later in life. (4)
5. Across the nation just under half of children between birth and five years (47.8%) are read to every day by their parents or other family members. (5)
6. 37% of children arrive at kindergarten without the skills necessary for lifetime learning.(6)
7. Surveys of adolescents and young adults with criminal records show that about half have reading difficulties. Similarly, about half of youths with a history of substance abuse have reading problems. (7)
8. The less reading materials there are in the home, the lower students are in reading proficiency, according to the Educational Testing Service. (8)
9. Where parent involvement is low, the classroom mean average reading score is 44 points below the national average. (9)
10. Among those who reach adulthood with the lowest level of literacy proficiency, 43% live in poverty. Among those who have strong literacy skills, only 4% live in poverty. (10)

I don’t say this to make anyone feel guilty for what they can’t do. I’m a busy mom myself and there are so many things on my plate. Sometimes the last thing I was to do at night is read to my kids.

However, I know that there is something simple I CAN do to give them what they need to succeed in life. It doesn’t cost a lot of money, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time (check out the free class at the bottom to learn more). I share this to give parents the hope that they have this amazing tool to use to bless their children!

In fact, studies show that reading aloud is the best way to help children develop word mastery and grammatical understanding even more than having conversations with them.

Reading is essential for everything in life, and studies show that children who read more, find more success. Currently 65% of America’s fourth graders do not read at a proficient level. This has huge implications on the future of our society!

Want to impact your children in a BIG way?! READ!

Join our FREE online class to learn how to raise children who LOVE to read!

1. De Bellis, M.D., Keshaven, M.S., Clark,D.B., Caseey, B.J., Giedd, J.B., Boring,A.M., Frustaci, K., & Ryan, N.D. (1999).Developmental traumatology.Part 2: Brain development. BiologicalPsychiatry, 45, 1271-1284.
2. Raikes, H., Pan, B.A., Luze, G.J., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S.,Brooks-Gunn, J., Constantine,J., Tarullo, L.B., Raikes, H.A., Rodriguez, E. (2006). “Mother-child book reading in low-income families: Correlates and outcomes during the first three years of life.” Child Development, 77(4).
3. Children’s Access to Print Material and Education Related Outcomes.
4. Reach Out and Read, Archives of Disease in Childhood, Reading Aloud to Children: The Evidence, 2008.
5. Russ S, Perez V, Garro N, Klass P, Kuo AA, Gershun M, Halfon N, Zuckerman B. Reading Across the Nation: A Chartbook (2007): Reach Out and Read National Center, Boston, MA .
6. Landry, S. H. (2005). Effective Early Childhood Programs: Turning Knowledge Into Action. Houston, TX: University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston.
7. National Information Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities. (1998). Children with reading disability. Washington, D.C.: Robert Bock.
8. Educational Testing Service, 1999. America’s Smallest School: The Family.
9. U.S. Department of Education. 1996. Reading Literacy in the United States: Findings From the IEA Reading Literacy Study.
10. Literacy in the Labor Force: Results from the National Adult Literacy Survey. National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1999. [link: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=1999470]

The post What NOT reading to your child can do first appeared on True Aim.

Join my FREE online class and I’ll teach you the secrets to learning that app companies don’t want you to know! You’ll learn:

• Frightening statistics that everyone should be talking about
• What happens to your child’s brain when you read to them
• How to encourage reluctant readers
• How to pick the BEST books!
• How to read more with NO extra time!

This class is only offered ONCE so don’t wait to sign up! Reserve your spot in the class before it fills up. 

Click here to sign up!

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Why You Need Regular Reading Days

1. Everyone Needs a Break

Reading days give you the chance for a change of pace from the normal frenzy of cramming math and grammar into your children’s heads. That’s not to mention guilt because you forgot to pick up the science supplies for this week’s experiment. Instead take a break. Sit down and enjoy a good book with your children.

The entire family gets a well-needed change of pace.

2. Immerse Yourself In Another World

Have your children had the opportunity to lose themselves in a good book? To spend the day wandering through Narnia with Lucy, Edmond, Susan, and Peter? What about exploring Middle Earth with Bilbo or Frodo? Often we fill our days with too many activities for our kids to have the opportunity to immerse themselves in a good book. There’s math, spelling, and chores to be done. Legos keep calling our children’s names to come and build.

Stop the chaos for a day. Let you and your children immerse yourselves in another world.

3. Focus on Skill of Reading

While we teach our children to read, sometimes we forget that kids need dedicated time reading to learn to love reading. It takes time and practice to become skilled readers. Some children naturally take to reading and will spend the time necessary to gain the skill when you first teach them to read. Other kids can think of better ways to spend their time.

Reading days give you a time to focus on giving your kids the skill of reading.

4. Homeschool When Everyone is Under the Weather

Reading days are wonderful when the entire family is under the weather. Instead of calling it quits, call it a reading day. Encourage your kids to curl up with a big mug of peppermint tea as they read their favorite book. Cook up some chicken soup for children to sip as they read.

Reading days are an excellent way to homeschool when the family is sick.

5. Time to Deal with Crisis

Sometimes you wake up to discover the sink has busted and water is spewing all over the floor. Instead of turning on the television to keep the kids out of your hair while you call the plumber, call it a reading day. The kids can curl up in the living room reading children’s books or listening to an audio book.

You’ll have the freedom you need to deal with today’s crisis.

Reading days give you a chance to focus on reading for a day. After all, there’s no better why to improve your children’s reading ability than for your children to read. Reading improves grammar, vocabulary, and spelling.

So give your kids a head start in life and enjoy the occasional reading day.

Have you ever enjoyed a reading day?

Don’t miss our FREE online class to READ more in LESS time!

The post 5 Reasons You Need Regular Reading Days first appeared on True Aim.

If you have 5 minutes each day, you can teach your child to read. The key is to review, reward, and repeat! It really is that easy especially when you have Blue Manor’s 5-minute phonics exercise book.

Teach your child to read with 5 minute phonics

It is hard for young children to sit for long periods and focus. If parents aren’t careful, they can burn their kids out, not just on reading, but on learning in general. 5-minutes is enough to teach a new concept, but not so much that a young 3-, 4-, or five-year-old will get bored. This is so important because reading is usually a child’s first experience with formal learning. If your children can handle more, you can do more than one lesson at a time, or you may even choose to do a few lessons throughout the day.

5 Minute Phonics from Blue Manor is your guide to teach your child to read and everything they need to become an accelerated reader. And don’t worry, it is super easy to teach! There are hundreds of good phonics programs out there, but none are this simple. Blue Manor Phonics is broken into 120 5-minute exercises, which are further broken down into simple steps.

Parents, with this system, you will never have to plan a lesson, and you don’t need any teaching experience. Just follow the steps for 5 minutes each day, and be amazed at how quickly your child becomes an advanced, confident reader!

Join our Workshop! (workshop over)

Want to see the program in action? We’ll introduce you to several tools from Blue Manor Academy that will help your children learn to read in just 15 minutes a day. Or maybe you have a struggling early reader? This workshop will help you too!  Join us for a fast and fun online workshop with a Curriculum GIVEAWAY!!!

The post Teach Your Child to Read Workshop and Sale! first appeared on True Aim.

Teaching your child to read is simple. It’s all about letter sounds and blending those sounds to make words. There are some sight words of course, but when kids are just starting out, phonics are key to developing good reading skills.

10 Teach Your Child to Read Activities

All these activities help promote the basics of learning letter sounds and blending them into words. They are simple so there isn’t a lot of prep or materials needed and they are exciting so children want to do them over and over. If you want some extra guidance on teaching your child to read, you’ll want to grab our Learn to Read system that will lay out the process for you step by step.

1. All Lined Up

Many parents are surprised that this is a reading activity! Memory games and sequence activities are great to help children develop those skills before they start reading. This one is our favorites!

2. Musical Chairs

This has always been an exciting game and now your kids can play it and learn at the same time. It’s perfect for learning letter sounds!

3. Alphabet Shekere

Combine music with letter learning in this activity! Kids will love playing hot potato with this DIY toy.

4. Alphabet Bean Bag Toss

There are lots of ways to teach your child to read, but this one will be a favorite for your active child!

5. Buried Treasure

We’ve learned lots of things with this exciting activity! Hide some letters and you can learn to read with buried treasure!

6. The Reading Road

Now it’s time to start learning how to blend those sounds your child has learned into words! This game is exactly what it is called; a road to reading. It can be a little tasty to if you want.

7. DIY Bananagrams 

You can do a lot with Bananagrams! Have your kids make as many words as they can. Spell words for them to make sentences, or just see if they can put the letters in order of the alphabet.

8. Letter Beads

Reading, spelling and fine motor skills come into play with this fun threading game!

9. Sight Word Fortune Teller

Remember these?! Practice some sight words and make your kids laugh with silly sentences made with a little bit of fate.

10. Secret Message Sight Words

Have a little artist or spy in the making? You might want to teach your child to read with some secret messages.

Which one would your child like best? Have any tips to teach your child to read? Share below!

You might like these resources from our store!

The post 10 Activities to Help Teach Your Child to Read first appeared on True Aim.

My son especially likes all of the fine motor activities that are in it. There’s a threading card, cutting practice, clip cards, and puzzle!

Kids will get lots of letter U writing practice with a tracing page, maze, letter search, and completing the word. I like to put them in sheet protectors to make them reusable. Have your children repeat the letter sound as they write. They’ll learn it in no time!

Free Preschool Printables: Short U Sound Pack

There are 10 pages total with lots of easy words for kids to read with the short letter U. The 10 pages are easy enough for preschoolers to learn how to do on their own, but challenging enough to get good reading practice in. The smaller mini pack size is great because kids don’t get bored of doing the same letter over and over and there is a different activity on each page.

These free preschool printables go great with our Learn to Read Curriculum! Your children will start to read right away with our program so they are motivated to learn the letter sounds.

The early readers are very simple to encourage kids to read them over and over with little help from you. After finishing the lessons, your child will be reading at a 1st grade level! They’ll have a big head start if they finish it before entering kindergarten. If they are older, but struggling with reading, this is the perfect solution to give them the right foundation for reading more complex words. You can get it in print or a digital format.

To download the free preschool printables click on the image below, and receive the PDF to your email. Or sign up for our newsletter and have access to all of our printables on our subscriber freebie page. You’ll also receive a free eBook of the month, exclusive giveaways and more!

The post Free Preschool Printables: Short U Sound first appeared on True Aim.