The most often asked question that I receive is, “What is the best way to teach my child to read?”  The majority of parents and teachers realize that the most important gift you can give someone is the ability to read.  If a person can read, then they are capable of teaching themselves anything!  With access to well-stocked libraries and the advancement of the internet, the ability to search and read about any topic in just a few seconds is a reality.  Therefore reading is the single most powerful skill needed to educate yourself.

So where do we begin? 

First, we need to introduce children to the world of literature by reading to them daily from good children’s literature.  Reading with children whether in a group or one-on-one is an invaluable experience!  The children learn that print conveys a message, left-to-right reading progression, and of course, the joy of reading!

Maria Montessori in her book, The Montessori Method, wrote:

“Corresponding to each letter of the alphabet, we had a picture representing some object the name of which began with the letter.  Above this, letter was painted in large script, and near it, the same letter, much smaller and in its printed form.  These pictures served to fix the memory of the sound of the letter, and the small printed letter united to the one in script, was to form the passage to the reading of books.”

Based on Montessori’s concept of teaching phonics to young children, we have developed, The Sound Book.  It is a simple book that displays each letter on a separate page. A lower case letter is printed three times as well as three initial sound pictures. 

So why only lower case letters? 

Because the majority of written text is lower case.  We do not want to teach more than one concept at a time, since it may be confusing for our young children, so we isolate and teach only one concept. 

The Sound Book consists of twenty-six pages and can be read in less than five minutes.  When done daily, the children learn the phonetic sounds very quickly!  I believe consistency is the key. 

So at what age do we begin reading this book of sounds? 

If a child is read to often and understands print brings a message then you may begin! My little grandson at eighteen months had already learned a majority of the sounds of the letters through simply reading the Sound Book.  He loves his Sound Book, and at the age of two began sounding out short vowel words! Here is an example of how I use the sound book with him.

There are additional steps to teaching reading that I will cover in future articles, but this is the first - to read to children and to introduce them to the phonetic sounds.  If you are interested in The Sound Book you can purchase a downloadable format in our store to print or use electronically for your own use.