Resources to help your child read: In addition to reading, other things you might try

All the research shows that your child will not learn to read passively, by simply watching TV or playing a video game.  Reading, the art of reading, and I do call it an art, comes from human interaction and practice.  I do not want anyone thinking that by simply using the resources below that their child will read.  It will not happen in this way. You must read to your child, first and foremost, and build that initial love and connection to books.  Computers, videos and electronic reading toys will not do this.  The connection must be with books.

That being said, there are some really great wonderful resources out there to go accompany the reading parent.  Again, I am not advising that you stick your  child in front of these games/videos/toys and leaving it up to your child to absorb it from these sources - rather, in conjunction with daily reading aloud from books, you can use this as additional teaching resources.  The BEST way to utilize these resources is not to stick your child in front of them and walk away, but rather enjoy the resources with your child and ask questions as things are going on, making it much more interactive and not passive.

Starfall
For all ages and FREE.
www.starfall.com

Starfall is a great website that offers some really fun animated videos to help teach a child his or her letters and even demonstrates sounding out letters as well as blending them together.  I've used it with all three of my children, and right now, my 4 year old daughter who is a very good reader is helping my 2 year old son with the website.  He cannot navigate it, but loves sitting on my lap as I help him review letters and let him tell me where to click the mouse next.  My 4 year old daughter can also do this if I am otherwise occupied.  She navigates the mouse for him, asks him "Which letter is that?" and asks him "What letter do you want next?" and encourages him and corrects him if necessary.  It is a very child friendly website and I like it because there are great activities for all ages -2 and up.  As the child grows older, he or she can move from the letter sounds and phonics pages to the reading pages, where there are short little books that he or she can read along with.

Meet the Sight Words
Ages 2-5ish....after that it can be a bit boring, although my five your old still enjoyed it
Three DVDs

This is a series of three DVD's that animate sight words so that your child will begin to recognize them.  Mastering sight words is important as it increases fluency of reading for your child.  Imagine a child having to sound out words like the, and, what, where, here, his, her, an, a - every single time he or she picked up a book.  Mastering the sight words means that those words are recognized on sight and no longer have to be sounded out in order to make meaning.  There are 220 Dolch Sight words, and you can easily find lists online such as these.   Some are divided into grade level, and others by frequency.  (The, and, one being big players in that list.)  By grade 3, most of the sight words need to be mastered in order for a child to be a good fluent reader.  Schools generally teach sight words from kindergarten until third grade with teachers posting them around the classroom and whatnot.  I think however, that readers benefit from learning more sight words earlier than later.  Having them under the belt just ensures that the child will have an easier time reading.

These DVD's animate words and make them memorable.  My three children all watched these and all mastered their words very quickly.  The older kids (girls ages 4 and 6) now utilize them all the time so they retain their knowledge of the sight words with no problem.  My son however (age 2.5 now) watched these from about 20 months to about 25 months old, but is NOT reading yet.  He quickly forgets them because they are really just pictures he remembers.  Once he starts reading, then I think the sight words will stick for him.

If you want to just get all three DVD's (all different with different sight words)


Try out just one volume at a time - #1


#2


#3


Leapfrog Letter Factory Series
Ages 2 and up
DVD

This is probably one of the more popular series of "teaching kids to read" out there.  The animation is great, the story line fun and it is really engaging and exciting to kids.  However, my children did not learn their letters from watching this DVD alone.  They got lots of reinforcement from me and lots of extra teaching and reading with me before they mastered their letters.  This is, however a great start and introduction that is fun and exciting.

Introduction of the letters


Learning to decode the words


Complex words (long vowel sounds with two vowels controlling the sound)


Storybook (the least effective in the series I think)

Belinda Begins Ballet: Don't let obstacles get in your way

Title: Belinda Begins Ballet
Author: Amy Young
Illustrator: Amy Young
Age Range: 3-8
Genre: Picture book

When I was growing up, my parents decided at some point that my duck walk would no longer do and decided ballet lesson would be the thing to cure my walk.  (Little did they understand that my duck walk feet also worked very well in ballet.)  When they told me I was going to do ballet, I pouted, cried and screamed because I didn't want to dance.  I was worried about the clothes, what I would look like and what I would be doing in the class that could potentially humiliate or embarrass my already then fragile ego.  (I was a bit of a sensitive child.)

However, I ended up loving ballet enough to take it for about five years.  I loved the dancing, the discipline, the French words, and the whole movement and grace of the dance form.  When dancing, I felt so different and out of my body and a part of the music in a way that I've never experienced since then.  I love ballet.

In the book, Belinda Begins Ballet, Belinda also loves ballet, only she isn't aware of it initially.  She starts life having these rather enormous feet, and they are her most distinguishing characteristic.  As she grows up and goes to school, a teacher notices these feet and decides that Belinda is the perfect person to play the clown for the school talent show; Belinda will be clumsy, uncoordinated, and fall and crash into things as only a clown should.  Only, Belinda does not like the role, and is entranced one day, when she inadvertently catches one of the students dancing a ballet solo for the talent show.  From that day on, Belinda watches and then goes home and practices ballet movements.

In the end, when it is her turn to dance onstage, Belinda chooses to dance gracefully and beautifully, and not like a clown at all. She is true to herself and what she wants to do.  She does not let her big feet stop her from being the dancer she wants to be.

I love Belinda because she tries hard to overcome the obstacles that are in front of her, and in the end her hard work pays off.  My daughters have both loved the book for it is funny as well as having a powerful message.

The first book in the series


The next in the series...also really super cute


A funny one where Belinda is supposed to dance in Paris, but her shoes are lost so she has to figure out how to make them...to the rescue - Baguettes!


The last in the series...there is a bit of a catty girl in this one, so I'm less keen on this than the others, but still a good read

Cars:Rushing! Honking! Zooming!: Rhyme and have fun with your child

Title: Cars: Rushing! Honking! Zooming!
Author: Patricia Hubbell
Illustrator: Megan Halsey and Sean Addy
Age Range: 3-8
Genre: Picture book, rhyming

There has been a lot of research done in regards to the benefits of reading aloud rhymes to your child.  Rhymes help children gain some basic building blocks to become readers.  But more than that, children love rhymes.  I think rhymes help ME to read the story with more fun and more inflection and I can see that the rhythm and rhyme engage my son an additional level besides just the story line itself.

I picked this book up on a whim and upon opening it, knew immediately that my son would love it.  The pictures are really unique, sort of retro but also modern at the same time.  The illustrators mix up who is driving all of the cars - sometimes animals, sometimes humans but it makes for a really wonderful thing to look at.  My son can't get enough of it and I've been reading/rapping the book to him every night for the past six days.  He loves the pictures, and the last line of the book is "they go to rest" and I always whisper it, since it is a picture of a cars "sleeping" in their garages.  My son, now also whispers it and it is so fun to see.

This book simply details in rhyme, types of cars, what they do, where they go, why they are useful and is just a really fun book both to the eyes and to the ears.

Hardcover


Paperback

All of a Kind Family: Good clean fun and a window into the past

Title: All of a Kind Family
Author: Sydney Taylor, Helen John
Age Range: 7-12
Genre: Historical Fiction

I worry a lot about what my children consider to be entertainment.  In a world where there is TV, amusement parks, ipods, iphones, cable, video games and cartoons, there is never any lack of entertainment.  But I worry that this overly commercialized society will eventually stifle any creative juices in their bones and stunt their imaginations.

I spend a lot of time talking to my children about how the world is changing, and how they have so many things that I didn't have as a child.  I also really like them to read about times and places where people didn't have as much, and instead relied on their wits, their imagination, and their spunk to get them through the day.  I like them to imagine worlds where the things that they consider to be normal didn't exist and still people were very happy and enjoyed and loved their life.

I loved this book as a child.  I remember picking it up at my local library, and reading the first page and deciding to get it.  It was a heavy hardback book, but I loved reading books about lots of siblings, especially sisters since I didn't have any sisters.  There were several in the series and I know I read all of them.

The story takes place in New York, post WWII and portrays a wonderful Jewish family and the escapades of their life. There are five girls ranging in age from four years to twelve year old.  It is more a series of vignettes and isn't really one cohesive novel with a beginning, a middle and an end.  Rather it captures individual moments in the family's life and how they deal with those situations are really funny.  One such story is the one where the girls have to dust (they have chores!) and they complain about how much they hate dusting.  Their mother decides to make a game of it and hides buttons, and as the girls dust, they are supposed to try and find the buttons.  It's a cute game and one I think I may have my kids try when I want them to mop the floor or something.  It has such a sense of good clean fun and the adventures and misadventures of the girls are wonderful to read about.

This would be a great read aloud book with your child, if he or she can't read well enough yet.