When it’s time to teach reading to your child, you want to make sure you’re doing it right. So much in life is dependent upon good reading skills. Not only will your child need to be proficient in reading for homeschool, they’ll also need it afterwards and throughout life, you know! If you’re ready to start teaching reading to your homeschooled child, here are some of the best methods you can use. Included in this post is also a FREE trial of Reading Eggs online curriculum!
Best Methods to Teach Reading to your Homeschooled Child
When you teach your homeschooled child how to read, there are two very different methods you should be aware of. Both the phonics method and the whole language method are popular ways to teach reading to kids. There are benefits to using each of these methods, so you will have to experiment with each and discover what works best for your family. Here are the basics on these methods.
This is a sponsored post on behalf of Reading Eggs. The information and opinions provided are my own. See my disclosure for more information.
Phonics Method
When you use the phonics method to teach reading to your child, you’re emphasizing the decoding aspect of learning to read. Basically, you teach your child the sounds that letters and letter groups make. Your child then uses this information to sound out the word they’re trying to read. This method teaches many important foundational skills, making it a successful method to use.
Pros:
- Foundational Skills – Your child will learn the important foundational skills they will need in order to be successful readers.
- Decoding Unknown Words – Even after your child knows the basics, they will rely on the decoding skills they’ve learned to help identify unknown words, even when they’re in high school!
Cons:
- Fluency – Because your child is sounding out the words, you will notice that they aren’t reading very fluently at first. This will improve as your child’s decoding skills improve.
- Meaning – When your child focuses on the sounds in the word, they can quickly forget to give that word meaning. Make sure your child rereads the whole sentence once they’ve decoded the words so that they learn to comprehend what they’re reading.
Whole Language Method
Another method you can use to help your child learn to read is the whole language method. As opposed to phonics, which teaches your child to focus on the individual letters and sounds, the whole language method does the opposite. It teaches your child to recognize the whole word on sight. With this method, your child will glance at the word and read it from memory.
Pros:
- Fluency – Since your child is able to recognize the words on sight, they will read more fluently than they would with the phonics method.
Cons:
- Trouble with Unknown Words – There are so many words in the English language that it will be impossible for your child to memorize it all. Because they rely on memorization rather than decoding, your child can have trouble figuring out unknown words.
More Reading Tips
In addition to these two reading methods, here are a few tips you can use to be more successful when teaching your child how to read.
- Use a Combination of Methods – One of the best tips I can give you is to use a combination of these methods. Experiment with what works best for your family and go with that. You can use the whole language method to teach your child common sight words that simply cannot be sounded out. These would include words such as “the” or “could”. You can then use the phonics method to teach decoding so that your child has a well-rounded reading foundation.
- Pick Interesting Books – Don’t forget that love of reading is vital to a successful reading career. Pick interesting books for your child to read, or let your child pick the book! You can give them a selection of level-appropriate books to choose from so that they don’t pick something too hard and become frustrated with it.
- Use a Reading Program – There are so many programs out there that can help you teach reading to your child. My favorite program to use with my kids is Reading Eggs. This program uses a combination of methods to help your child be successful when reading. It’s fun, interesting, and reasonably priced! What’s even better is that right now, Reading Eggs has a free 4-week trial going on so that you can see what it has to offer. You’re guaranteed to love it as much as I do!
Are you ready to teach reading to your homeschooled kids? Which of these methods are you familiar with? The free trial of Reading Eggs would certainly be a good help to you!
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