Parents who read to their children and know how to make the most of the time spent reading can make a big impact on their children's ability to learn to read. I have a website with some resources and advice for parents. Please visit Parent and Child Reading Assistance and the Advice by Age page. Here are some guides I've found online: A Guide to Reading With Your Child by Kindercare

Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in a language. It is important for readers to be able to hear and produce the smallest units of sounds before trying to learn to read or write. Reading is blending small units of sound together and knowing what sounds letters and letter combinations make. Some words will be learned as sight words, but most words will be read by using letter and sound

  I can read. My children can read. We are able to enjoy and learn through this ability. Many children and adults are less fortunate.   Sometimes it's easier not to think about the challenges of others. We think . . . "What can I really do about it?" Here are a few organizations that are helping. We Give Books - You can help by reading stories online. It's easy and free. Better

What is phonological weakness?   I recommend reading a page from Super Hero Reading to see brain activity pictures and learn more about phonological weakness.   Phonological refers to the sounds of language. Here's a definition of phonological awareness from education.com. Phonological weakness means a person has difficulty hearing and producing separate sounds in language. This

  Professor Garfield has free online comics for early readers and free online reading games.   Free Online Comic Books Toon Books are engaging stories for early readers. A selection of Toon Books are available free of charge to read online. These early children's books are available in different languages too. Here's the link to Toon Book's library of free online comic books.      

A big part of learning to read is learning phonics rules. I love to use magnetic letters to practice phonics rules. Kids love magnetic letters too!   Find out how to organize magnetic letters here. Please check out these next videos and consider purchasing a set of magnetic letters and a magnetic easel. There's so much learning that can be done with magnetic letters. Children learn so

October is National Dyslexia Awareness month. Dyslexia is a developmental reading disorder. One in ten people have symptoms of dyslexia.   picture by Phillip Martin The International Dyslexia Association has a must read article to get you started learning more about dyslexia. About the International Dyslexia Association: The International Dyslexia Association is a non-profit,

Give a young child a blank piece of paper, and that child will create something. Here are some examples from my own children when they were young. Luke created this when he was four years old. He called it his book. He folded it in half and would open it and "read it". He was very proud of his book and brought it out often.     Hailey created this picture when she was three. She

You can learn about this campaign here. I plan to post some tweets. Please consider joining this campaign or just retweet. I'm not the most savy tweeter, so I could use a little help.  If you are good with Twitter or even a novice like me, please help with this campaign. You can follow Raise A Reader MA on Twitter. You can follow Michelle Breum on Twitter.   Learn about Raise a Reader here

Helping a child learn to sound out words can be difficult.   Free sites like Reading Bear or The Reading Teacher are helpful. Purchasing a program from Reading Horizons can be even more helpful. Parents can learn a few phonics rules and tricks to sound out words to help their children sound out words while reading good books. It takes time, patience, good books, and a little knowledge

My opinion on this subject is . . . "Parents should only do what feels right and is comfortable for themselves and their children when helping a child learn to read."   This will not be a step by step post. I will not tell you there is only one way to get a child ready to read. You can follow your own path and enjoy the journey. I recently updated a page I wrote at Squidoo. It includes my

Parents can help their children read with understanding. It starts early and continues through teenage years. How can a parent improve a child's reading comprehension?     Clip Art from Phillip Martin      1. Provide books and other reading material. 2. Value reading time . 3. Read together with children of all ages. 4. Show that reading is about getting meaning.   1. Providing

Books with simple text or beginner reader books that interest an older reader are sometimes hard to find. It's important to find these books and teach the reading skills an older reader is missing. Reading is a complicated process that requires a combination of skills and thinking to come together. Challenges in learning to read happen to children of all intelligence levels, all economic

I'm very excited to share these next three sites with you to help you teach an early reader! All three online sites for teaching reading are free and without advertisements! Reading Bear Reading Teacher Reading Lessons How is this possible? It's possible, because there are generous people in the world who know what works and want to share it. All sites have a registering option.

Reading Horizons is a systematic way to teach phonics and is available for home use! There are programs geared toward different age groups. You can teach phonics to older readers and younger readers with Reading Horizons. You'll love the features and support! I've known about Reading Horizons for years but never tried it out until this summer. It took getting free access to Reading

Recently I learned about an organization called We Give Books. It's a free way to read children's books online! Storytime Online and Storyline Online are free too. We Give Books is extra special. We Give Books gives a book for every book you read online. That's right. Kids can have access to great books and give to others! I encourage you to learn more about We Give Books and share this

Have you tried echo reading? It's a great way to get kids reading with expression.   If you want a fun reading activity, try echo reading. You can read a sentence once or twice from a favorite children's book. Then ask a child to echo you. Have fun and ham it up! Check out this fun three minute video of kids echo reading! Book apps from Oceanhouse Media have a read to me option that

Many parents have shared with me that Dr. Seuss books helped teach their children to read. Many parents specifically mentioned the book Hop on Pop . Hop on Pop is available as an Andriod app Hop on Pop - Dr. Seuss and an iphone app Hop on Pop - Dr. Seuss - Oceanhouse Media . This post will teach the VC and CVC phonics rules. You may want to visit another recent post I shared that teaches

The numbers on this graph show reading levels measured by the Lexile Framework for Reading. 900L = 6th grade reading level 975L = 7th grade reading level 1050L = 8th grade reading level 1100L = 9th grade reading level 1150L = 10th grade reading level 1200L = 11th grade reading level 1250L = 12th grade reading level Reading improvement requires time spent

This post is part of a series. You can learn more about this series in the next highlighted link. Sight Word Flashcards with Free Printable Books This post will focus on ways to help an early reader learn to read with the book, A Garden. The high frequency flashcards I created that go with this book are the words I, will, and, then, and have. You can download your own set of 30

Last weekend, April 21 -22, I shared my business at the Weekend for Families Summer Preview. The show came at the perfect time for me. I've been developing my parent support business for three years. I was able to share my business and meet the people I want to reach. Wow! I met some amazing people. I loved hearing their stories and learning about their needs. I'm passionate about helping

An early reader who knows some common two letter phonograms will be able to decode or sound out more words. This will maybe prevent the habit of guessing at too many words. Most children I've tutored with reading had a habit at guessing at words and ignoring most letters. It's hard to unlearn this habit. Guessing at words works with early reader books with lots of picture clues. Readers with

I'm joining the Ultimate Blog Party 2012 today. It's put on by 5 Minutes For Mom. I'm looking forward to connecting with some other mom bloggers. There are some great prizes too. I've peeked in on 5 Minutes For Moms in their BlogFrog community in the past. These identical twin mom bloggers are meeting their goal of supporting and connecting mom bloggers! My blog goal is to support parents who

Beginning readers need to know letter sounds and be able to blend these sounds to read. I like to teach early readers the most common sounds for letters that can make more than one sound first and teach the less common sound after a new reader makes the most common sound for a letter quickly and easily when it is presented. Most books for beginning readers have words with the most common sounds

Make sure the new reader you are helping knows the long o, long e vowel sounds and the consonants g, n, w, and m sounds. You will be teaching the CV Rule or the consonant vowel rule. A vowel at the end of a short word usually has a long vowel sound. You can write the words no, go, me, and we or use magnetic letters to make the words NO, GO, ME, and WE. The first step is to show a child to make