Teach a Child to Read

By: Peggy M. Wilber

Dedicated to the thousands of children who need to

improve their reading skills, and to their parents who want
to help them succeed.
 The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house all that cold, cold, wet day.
I sat there with Sally. We sat there, we two.
And I said, "How I wish we had something to do!"
-from The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss -

Thirty-eight percent of all fourth graders in the United

States can't read this simple poem. Is your child one of
them? Does your child drone, hesitate, and torture words
while reading? He or she is one of 7 million elementary-
aged children who is performing below his or her reading
potential.

Certainly millions of children in America can't be stupid,

lazy, or have ADD. Children sitting in the best classrooms
in the country struggle with reading. Moms and dads are
scratching their heads wondering whether to get a part-
time job to pay for tutoring for Jerome or Ashley.

This past decade, educators have been fighting a Phonics

versus Whole Language reading war. Each side has strong
advocates, yet many children still emerge from schools
unable to read. Meanwhile, scientists have been busy
trying to identify the missing puzzle piece of how children
learn to read.

Here's some good news: Research indicates that 90 to

95% of all children can learn to read at grade level with
proper intervention. You can make a profound difference
in your child's ability to read by spending fifteen minutes
per day with your son or daughter, using information
provided in this website, playing games and reading good
books together.

So let's begin to help your child improve in reading!

Auditory Skills and Tri-Method Instruction

A Weak Link is Auditory Skills

Researchers have been looking inside children's brains
while they do literacy tasks. Using functional Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (fMRI) they discovered that poor
readers showed differences in brain activities than those
who are literate. Some important brain areas are
underactivating.

A common weakness is in auditory discrimination skills.

For example, many poor readers do not "hear" differences
in letter sounds. To them, the five short vowels sound
almost exactly alike.

This causes poor readers to expend more effort for less

return.

They have a harder time rapidly and accurately recalling

letter sounds. Inefficient letter-sound recall makes it more
difficult for these children blend letter sounds to make
syllables or words. Finally, their brains are inefficient in
recognizing and recalling words.

But their brains work well in other areas, which explains

why they can be bright, yet functionally illiterate. The
good news is that children's brains are not etched in
stone. Auditory skills and letter sound memory can be
strengthened. Your son or daughter can become a good
reader with your help.

The Tri-Method Instruction to Literacy Success

In a perfect world, children would learn how to read using
a combination of three methods of instruction: auditory
training, phonics, and whole language.

It's clear from research that using one of these methods

will help only a few children. In fact, using two out of
three methods will still leave numerous children illiterate.
However, when auditory training, phonics and whole
language are merged, literacy rates increase significantly.
Hopefully, you will see all three methods reflected in
curriculum and used in American classrooms soon.
Learning to Read

Learning How to Read Begins in Children's Ears

Most people think children learn how to read through their
eyes. But reading is actually learned through the ears.
Parents lay a foundation for success in reading by talking
to a child, reading books to her, and playing auditory
games such as rhyming. The more books you read, the
bigger her vocabulary becomes. A bigger vocabulary
allows her to recognize lots of words while she reads. If
you've read books to her about cheetahs and warthogs,
it's more likely she can read those words when her
teacher gives a homework assignment about the
Serengeti Plains.

Learning to Read, Reading to Learn

What is the normal sequence for children learning how to
read?

 From birth to age three, children listen to lots of

words spoken and learn how to talk.
 Children, aged three to four years old have growing
vocabularies, and they learn how to rhyme.
 In first grade children are taught how to blend letter
sounds together to "sound out" words and memorize
sight words. They begin reading simple sentences.
 Second and third graders learn how to read "chapter"
books and read fluently with comprehension.

Every once in awhile a parent says to me, "My son can't

read because he's lazy." I don't agree with that. A child
who can't read is missing important auditory tools:

 He can't rhyme
 She doesn't know the short vowel sounds-caused by
her inability to hear differences in short vowel
sounds. (Short vowels: a-apple, e-elephant, i-igloo,
o-octopus, u-umbrella)
  He can't put word parts together to make words-a
skill used in sounding out new words.
 She has slow recall of letter sounds. She sees letter
w and can't remember what it says.

These traits are common to most children who struggle in

reading. These are not traits of "laziness" but of auditory
and memory deficits. Do the following games and
activities to fill in your child's auditory gaps which in turn
will improve his reading skills.
Teaching Alphabet Sounds

Help Your Child Improve Auditory Skills by Teaching

Alphabet Letter Sounds
In order to read, every child must know the sounds of the
alphabet letters. He must be able to recall them quickly -
he sees the letter and says the sound without hesitation.

1. Test your child's knowledge of alphabet letter sounds

by using the provided Alphabet List. Point to each
letter and ask your child to, "Tell me what this
letter says."
*The alphabet list has no pictures, so your child has
to rely totally on memory.
*You are asking your child to tell you the letter
sound, not the letter name.
*Write down letter sounds that he or she misses.
This is a good place to begin fixing your child's
auditory gaps.

2. If your child needs to learn most of the alphabet

letter sounds, help her create her own Alphabet
Book. Staple some pieces of paper together and ask
your child to draw pictures of items that begin with
the sound of each alphabet letter.

3. You can also teach alphabet letters and letter sounds

by using an Alphabet Chart with pictures.
*Be sure to point to each letter as you are saying the
letter name and letter sound.
*Review the alphabet chart once a day and pretty
soon your child will be able to point to each letter
 and say the sounds himself!
*I have an alphabet chart tacked on the wall at kid-
height of my son's bedroom so he can look at it.

4. When you are teaching a letter sound, be careful not

to add an "uh" sound at the end of the letter. For
example, letter s should sound like a snake hissing,
with no throat sound. Letter s says 'sss,' not 'suh.'
If your child learns letters 'c', 'a', 't' as sounding
'kuh,' 'aah,' and 'tuh,' those sounds will not come
together to say cat!

Children have different learning rates. Your child may

need lots of direct instruction to learn the alphabet
sounds. Don't forget, he will learn letter sounds more
quickly with a short daily review.
Teaching How to Rhyme

Help Your Child Improve Auditory Skills by Teaching

How to Rhyme
Knowing how to rhyme will help your child read word
"families" such as let, met, pet, wet, and get. Notice that
rhyming words have same sound endings but different
beginning sounds. Some words don't look the same: ache,
cake, steak but they rhyme. To teach your child how to
rhyme, play a game.

Body Name Game

How to Play: Begin by modeling how to rhyme. Point to
parts of your body, say a rhyming word and your child
should say the body part. This puts rhyming into her ears
with a visual cue (pointing). If you point to your nose and
say rose, she will automatically say nose.

1. Tell your child, "We are going to play a rhyming

game. Rhyming words have the same sound endings.
I'm going to point to something on my body, and say
a word. You're going to say the body part that
rhymes. Okay?"

2. Give her two examples: "I'm pointing to my leg, and

I say beg. You say leg. I'm pointing to my nose. I
say rose, and you say nose.

3. Here's a list of body parts and rhyming words:

peek-
deer-ear go-toe bye-eye bear-hair
cheek
pail-nail gum- deck- fin-chin
farm-
sack- thumb neck band-
arm
back put-foot see-knee hand
feel-heel

4.
5. When your child is able to do this, turn it around.
Point to your knee and your child will say a rhyming
word such as bee or me!
When your child rhymes body parts, play this game:

1. Say, "I'm going to say a word and you'll tell me as

many rhyming words as you can. I say bee." Your
child then says words such as "he, she, we three,
free, or agree."

2. Choose one-syllable words that are easy to rhyme

with such as had, rat, man, fall, ten, red, big, fill,
hop, dog, bug and sun. All of these have multiple
words that rhyme.
Improving Short Term Memory

Help Your Child Improve Her Short Term Memory by

Playing the "I Went to the Market" Game
This game helps improve your child's short-term memory.
She will have to remember several sounds in the correct
order to sound out new words such as, fr-o-g put together
says frog.

How to Play:

1. Read this short poem to your child:

Johnny went to the market. Johnny went to the
store.
But when poor Johnny got there, he forgot what
he went there for.
Momma gave him a list. Momma gave it to him
twice.
And what Momma wanted was a big bag of rice...

2. Now say, "Momma wanted a bag of rice and carrots."

3. Your child repeats that and adds another item,

"Momma wanted rice and carrots and a cake."

4. It's your turn. "Momma wanted rice, carrots, cake

and a tulip." Take turns until someone gets an item
out of order or forgets an item. Make it fun by adding
items such as a football or alligators.

5. Another version of this game is to highlight a letter

sound. Let's say your child doesn't know w sound.
Play this game thinking of items that begin with w
such as, "Momma wanted a walrus, walnuts, wink
and a wand."
Putting Sounds Together

Help Your Child Put Sounds Together to Make Words

by Playing "Connect Three."
This game will help your child connect sounds to make
words. This skill is used when he sounds out new words.

How to Play:

1. Tell your child, "I'm going to say three sounds. I

want you to put the sounds together and say a word.
For example, I say c-a-t and you say cat. I say d-o-g
and you say dog." This is a little tricky on your part
because you have to think of words that can be said
in three parts. Words such as me or go won't work.
Longer words such as party can be par-t-y or p-art-
y. You might want to practice ahead of time to say
words in three parts. I have trouble thinking of
words, so I usually look around the room for good
ideas such as l-am-p or win-d-ow.

2. Here's a list to get you started: begin with nouns-

things that can be visualized and advance to words
that don't create mental pictures.

br-ai-n
m-o-m d-a-d d-e-sk tr-e-e y-ar-d
mo-n-
b-ir-d s-u-n pi-zz-a c-am-p t-en-t
ey
h-o-t gr-ee-n dr-in-k st-o-p w-i-n
c-ol-d
h-i-m c-a-n w-i-ll b-u-t fr-o-m
a-n-d

Getting Back into Books and Real Stories

Since the goal is improving your child's reading skills, we
need to get her into books. Choose four words from a
short reading selection (one page of a book) and say each
word in three parts to your child. Ask her to put the words
together. Now help her find those words on the page, and
read them together. You are making a connection
between the words she put together and what they look
like in print.
Reading Selections

What is a Reading Selection?

A common mistake that adults make is to insist that a

child read a whole book. It is far better to help a child
reread a short selection to excellence. A short selection is
one or two pages from an easy book or one paragraph
from a higher level book. If the selection is on the correct
readability level for your child, he should make no more
than one or two mistakes per twenty words. Any more
than that will cause him frustration and will actually block
his reading progress.3

Don't make him read it cold turkey either or he'll sound

like a car starting up on a winter morning - bumpy and
hesitant. We don't want your child to practice bad reading.
That's why you want to do the following:

1. Read the short selection to him twice.

2. Read the same selection with him twice.
3. Finally, ask him to read it by himself twice.

To, With, and By is a fabulous repeated reading

technique that will catapult your child forward in reading
skills.4 It will help him learn and apply sight words more
quickly, helps him to practice fluent reading and improves
his comprehension-all the important skills of reading.

Some parents say, "But she's memorizing the selection!"

Well, when was the last time you used phonics to sound
out words while reading? Phonics is used as a last resort
when bumping into unknown words such as cruciate
ligament. When reading you usually recognize words by
sight. Phonic skills are necessary to jump-start the
process of learning to read. But reading by using sight
words is more efficient.
You might be thinking, "My child isn't getting enough
practice if she isn't reading a whole book." My answer is,
your child gets excellent practice when you do To, With,
and By in a short selection. A little bit of good reading is a
lot better than a whole lot of bad reading.

Have I convinced you to do To, With, and By? Your child

might not be thrilled at first. However, once she gets the
hang of it, her attitude will improve and her reading skills
will skyrocket.

3. Edward Fry, How to Teach Reading: For Teachers, Parents,

Tutors (Laguna Beach: Laguna Beach Educational Books, 1995),
20.
4. Barbara E. R. Swaby, Journey Into Literacy: A Workbook for
Parents and Teachers of Young Children (Colorado Springs:
Swaby Books Publisher, 1992).
Alphabet Chart
Questions and Answers

Here are some questions asked by parents, grandparents,

caregivers and teachers.

Question: I know my son can read lots of words from a

list. But when I pull out a book, he freaks. He can't read
words in a book.
Answer: I have met children who read words on lists,
and aren't able to recognize the same words on the page
of a book. Remember how you used to feed pureed
peaches, spoonful by spoonful to your child? This is similar
to helping him read pages in a book.

 Choose some phrases-two or three words, from a

reading selection. Write them on note cards, and
teach them to your child.
 Next, write or type two sentences from the selection
on a piece of paper. Using the To, With, and By
technique help your child to read the sentences.
 Open the book and show him where the sentences
are located. Ask him to read them to you. Let him
compare the same sentences written on paper and in
the book.
 Now type a couple of paragraphs from his favorite
book onto a sheet of paper. Using To, With and By,
help him to read these sentences. Then have him
read them from his book. You are making a
connection between words on lists and sentences in
books. He will realize that he can read sentences in
books-with your help. His resistance to books will
decrease over time.

Question: My child cries when I ask her to read a book

with me. Will this ever stop?
Answer: My daughter cried when she was learning how
to read. It was a struggle every day to get her to the
table. (As you can imagine, this was not our favorite time
of day!) Your child needs to know the hard part of reading
is at the beginning, and it will get easier as she practices.
Take her to the store to choose some candy or stickers.
These will be used for daily rewards for her efforts in
reading. Praise her for little victories. Your child will hear
herself improve over time. She may enjoy making
homemade books. Create success in her reading by doing
To, With, and By on a selection every day. After a while
she will be less afraid to tackle new selections. She will be
pulling your sleeve and asking, "When are we going to the
library?" And you will be able to put away the Kleenex
box.

Question: My daughter mixes up letters d and b, and

says the word saw when she sees the word was. Does she
have dyslexia?
Answer: Dyslexia is broadly defined in the dictionary as
"an impairment of the ability to read."1 Some scientists
describe dyslexia as being a deficiency in the language
system that processes the sounds of speech, in the brain.2
Many children who seem to have dyslexic-like tendencies
begin to read better when they do activities that help to
increase their auditory skills. Mixing up letters d and b is
a visual confusion, not knowing which way the "tummy" of
the letter faces-to the left or right. (This has nothing to do
with auditory issues that earmark a problem with
dyslexia.) A child who says dog for bog usually needs
practice in knowing left from right. In most children this
letter confusion corrects itself by the end of third grade. A
child who sees the word was and says saw needs
practice in visual discrimination. This can be as simple as
writing the words saw and was on note cards. Show your
child the note cards, and ask her to tell you differences
she sees between the two sight words - was, saw. Or,
play the Find That Word game to highlight a chosen
word.
Find that Word Game
  Choose a word that your child often confuses such as
was. Write it on a note card.
 Show your child the note card, and make sure she
knows what the word means.
 Open a children's magazine such as Ranger Rick and
ask your child to circle every was on the page. She
gets five points for each was she circles, and loses
two points for every was she misses.
 On a different day, play this same game with the
word saw.

Don't let was, saw, b's and d's drive you crazy. Just do a
couple of minutes of review each night, and pretty soon
your child will know her p's and q's too!

1 Random House Webster's Dictionary, Third Edition,

(New York: Ballantine Books, 1998).
2 Sally Shaywitz. "Dyslexia," New England Journal of
Medicine 338, no. 5 (January 29, 1998): 307-312.

Question: My son is in fourth grade. He definitely isn't

fluent when reading out loud. Should I make him read out
loud every night, or should he be reading silently?
Answer: Silent reading is more efficient than reading out
loud. Your child can learn to read faster, and possibly
have better comprehension when he reads silently. After
third grade, the emphasis in school is on silent reading.
Therefore, your child should practice five to ten minutes of
each: reading out loud and silent reading when you work
together on reading skills. It is more difficult to know
what's going on when your child is reading silently. You
will have to ask questions to monitor his comprehension
after he has read a selection silently. Make sure the
reading selection is on your child's Independent Reading
level-no more than one or two mistakes for every twenty
words. For your child to be successful in reading silently,
preteach the most important vocabulary words and
concepts. This gives him the necessary prior knowledge
for good comprehension. Silent reading is an important
skill that your child must develop to do well in school. Do
some silent reading yourself while he's reading silently. He
might become interested in your book someday.

Question: My child reads easy books. He is eleven years

old and he only likes to read Dr. Seuss books. He's not
going to get to college this way.
Answer: If you are in this position, your child needs your
intervention right away. Many parents blame their child
for being lazy. They don't realize that their child is missing
necessary tools for better reading. You can't build a house
without hammer and nails! Begin by looking at his
personal gaps in reading skills. Test his knowledge of
alphabet letters and sounds. Don't make him work by
himself reading books. Create a bridge from Dr. Seuss to
fifth-grade books for him. Take time to read short
selections using the To, With, and By technique every
day. Over time, he will feel more successful in reading. He
will discover new topics that interest him. Eventually, The
Cat in the Hat will be put in the closet to make room on
the shelf for Summer of the Monkeys or The Chronicles of
Narnia.
About the Author

Peggy M. Wilber is a teacher, author, and speaker with a

mission of helping children learn to read well. She has
been diagnosing and remediating elementary and middle
school children's reading disorders since 1987.

Motivated by an escalation of needy students she co-

founded a tutoring program servicing local elementary
school students and their families. As Instructional
Coordinator, Peggy trained tutors in auditory reading
techniques resulting in students advancing two or more
reading levels per semester, far outperforming non-
tutored peers.

Peggy involved parents and grandparents, as valuable

resources, by creating Parent Training Seminars. Her
Succeed to Read website is based on information
presented in these parent seminars. Having conducted
seminars during the past three years in public schools,
private schools and churches, she is convinced that
parents are able to absorb and utilize this information
making significant impact on their children's literacy.

Reading Rescue 1-2-3, published by Prima Publishing,

2000, and authored by Peggy Wilber, is a complete
manual offering auditory training techniques, phonic
worksheets, and cartoon stories that help children
improve in reading skills.

Her education includes a Masters of Education from

Boston University and Certification in Early Childhood
Reading Instruction from University of Colorado, Colorado
Springs, specializing in integrating reading methodologies.

Peggy lives in Colorado Springs with her husband, David,

and their two children.