TeachReading

Teach Reading The Easy Way
Simple-yet successful ways to teach reading to children

In these days, more and more families have decided that home schooling is the best choice for their children. Many do not Home School, yet know their child needs additional help. Many more are frightened at teaching and do not know where to start. We have compiled the properties of the main core of the education and learning process and the appropriate solutions to teaching reading.

Where do you start? Every young child first needs to learn the individual and unique shapes and names of each letter of the alphabet. This phase is termed Alphabet Recognition. The ability to recognize and name each letter is an important precursor to reading. Here are some best selling titles to help your children. Alphabet Express, a set with the 26 letters of the alphabet to explore, listens, and learns by. It has a handful of added-on games, imaginative short films, and freeform activities, and this CD-ROM has both appeal and staying power.

If your child prefers Blues Clues try Blue's Clue's ABC Activities, where your child can explore the world of letters, sounds, and words plus identify letters, build vocabulary, practice phonics, and create rhymes with Blue and friends. It is an activity pack filled with multilevel learning games.

As teaching in a fun environment leads to many different individual tastes in our children, you can also look to different companies for this curriculum. School Zone has many more titles in this age category to learn with too. Part of the School Zone On-Track software series, this outstanding program lets children practice their first phonics and reading skills in a structured yet entertaining setting. Features include bold graphics, a straightforward sequential presentation of skills and activities, emphasis on mastery and entertaining games. Knowledge Adventure's Multi Pack, Curious George, Disney, Harry Potter, and many more.

Phonics comes once your child has learned the above. It is the time to teach them the letter sounds and small beginner words, or Phonics. This process could be quite tedious and frustrating, as it involves great amounts of repetition. This is to reinforce learning combinations of sight and sound patterns. With the available resources today, it has evolved into easy work. Let us call it, 'child’s play’; after all, play is their 'work' right?

School Zone again has our highest rating for this step, with their Phonics Interactive Learning Center which combines the Big Activity CD-ROM, 160 workbook pages, flash cards, game cards, and a writing/drawing tablet to create high-value, fun-packed activities that will entertain as well as educate young children. Each Learning Center, designed to help children master skills for a specified grade level are structured kits used as an introduction prior to each grade or during the year to reinforce classroom lessons.

You may also look to JumpStart Phonics where your child can join Casey Cat, Pierre Polar Bear, Frankie the Dog, and the rest of the JumpStart pals on a fun-filled phonics trip to Camp Readalot. Explore the campsite, play games that reinforce phonics and reading skills, and collect special merit badges. Exclusive Read 'n' Respond feature lets you practice phonics by interacting with the computer, using speech-recognition technology. Perhaps try the Reader Rabbit or Blues Clues titles.

Reading Readiness is the next order for children to make in the transition from phonics levels to reading. They must first learn that the world around them is made of words. It involves the important step of becoming aware that words are relevance and have power. SchoolZones, Beginning Sounds is an excellent program that lets children practice their reading readiness skills in a structured yet entertaining setting. It features include bold graphics, a straightforward sequential presentation of skills and activities, emphasis on mastery and fun study breaks with arcade games. With all pages completed correctly, children can print out a certificate and play more games. They can also print out many of the activity pages for completion away from the computer. Skills covered include opposites, sequencing, matching, and identifying items that belong together. The CD comes with a workbook, too.
Parents can help children make sense of the world of words by pointing to words in books as they read, writing words their child dictates to them, and providing simple and repetitive early readers. Alphabet Express also has wonderful programs in this stage.

We are almost ready to start reading. Little ones are now able to hear, and distinguish between, individual letter sounds, as well as a strong awareness of text in a story. They are now showing an interest in text and stringing together sounds to create words. They now understand that the word cat, correctly spelled is "cat" and bat is not cat, etcetera.

Parents turning to software for early reading training with consistent results should look for a title that uses a systematic approach-one that incorporates a variety of exercises and one that features lessons that build upon previous ones. These programs will be most effective when parents are willing to support and reinforce learning, and help pace their learning.

Repetition is an essential element in any early reading system, but keeping their interest at the same time poses some difficulties. This is where software comes in. We do not want to overwhelm them, yet need to stimulate them into learning.

Reader Rabbit, I Can Read With Phonics incorporates both letter sounds and sight words. It provides meaningful context to newly learned words through its carefully sequenced storybooks. The repetitions provided but not too much of it to bore children.

Does your child love Clifford? Clifford The Big Red Dog Reading Readiness Program is for kids who cannot get enough of stories, songs, and the alphabet. It is sure to please your child's appetite for learning and fun. It is a simple yet smartly designed program, which teaches the fundamentals of reading using a strict phonetic approach.

Accelerated children will take a noticeable turn at this stage. If you feel that your child is accelerated, and ready for this stage, you can look into the Preschool-Excelerator, a package of four CD-ROMs featuring more than 25 individual lessons and 200 activities that are both entertaining and educational. These titles designed to engage your child's attention and help his or her confidence grow as their new skills are mastered.

Even more help comes to the rescue with the Phonics, Reading and Writing Program. This four-disc set of software titles combines fun with educational principles to provide children access to a world of knowledge. Phonics, Reading & Writing Excelerator will teach children the fundamentals needed to excel at these critical subjects. Packed with more than 30 individual lessons and more than 200 activities, this educational suite delivers hours of exciting learning adventures. Each program designed to help first-time readers with basic skill sets, while reinforcing key concepts and providing more advanced creative-writing lessons for intermediate students. Including activities that adjust to your child's current skill level, these lessons will continue to challenge children as they improve. Concepts taught include uppercase and lowercase letters, phonics, word formation, sentence structure, and creative composition.

As with any teaching method for young children, pacing a child is crucial. Keep each learning sessions brief and to the point.

Tactile Presence is mandatory for children in their learning process. They need to hold books in their hands in order to thrive in their skills and love for reading. As important as interactive software storybooks are, they can never completely replace the value of hard copies.

The Runaway Rabbit : Clifford the Big Red Dog (Big Red Reader Series) is based on the PBS Clifford series. Emily Elizabeth has asked Clifford to watch her classroom pet. The bunny escapes and Clifford can¹t catch him! There are dozens of books in this series, so it is sure to keep their interest alive!

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is the most successful beginning reading program available and used in many schools across the country. Research has proven that children taught by this method, outperform their peers who receive instruction from other programs. Now for the first time, this program has been adapted for parent and child to use at home. It is a complete, step-by-step program that shows patents simply and clearly how to teach their children to read. It is a sensible, easy-to-follow, and enjoyable way to help your child gain the essential skills of reading. Everything you need is here -no paste, no scissors, no flash cards, no complicated directions - just you and your child learning together. One hundred lessons, fully illustrated and color-coded for clarity, give your child the basic and more advanced skills needed to become a good reader.

Come see this extensive list of readers on the First Readers Favorites List and be sure to pick up some of the $1.00-$3.00 books. They are handy to keep on the shelf for that perfect occasion to read together.

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Jill Manzoni/GardenOfGood.com and