Stages of Reading: Beginner Readers

Some ways you can do this, apart from regular story time, is using activities they're already participating in at pre-school. You can do this at home, in the car or wherever you happen to spend a lot of time together. Encourage them to sing the rhyming songs they're learning. You might also want to label everyday objects around your home, as is often done in early learning classroom environments. Use plain white or other pale coloured card with neat reasonably large letters that are easy to see. You might want to use a computer to print these out. Another fun activity to do together is search through magazines for suitable words and paste them onto card. This might seem time consuming, but is worth it for their sake. Stick to objects in one room only if this is a more practical solution for you.

Emphasis on the sound of words is important at this stage. While learning and reciting the alphabet has value at this stage, it is just as vital they learn the sound each letter and each word makes. It's easy for kids to assume certain groups of words we say often are one word. Take common everyday speech for an example. Phrases and sentences they hear us speak in a slurred and run together way, by our own daily habit and usage. Such as; thank you, excuse me, what's the matter? what's for dinner? what are you doing? etc. It's all too easy for them to believe these common phrases are one word. This is where a balance between learning sight words, identifying them visually, and hearing them, phonetically is necessary. The alphabet is a great place to start, but by this stage they are ready for whole words and move onto identifying syllables as well.