Learning The Alphabet Letters: How To Teach Babies To Read

As the parent of a preschooler, you should make alphabet lessons an important part of your daily routine. Waiting until your child starts preschool or kindergarten to begin work on the alphabet will put your child behind in the literacy race while teaching your preschooler the alphabet can make them a sure winner. Teaching the alphabet letters does not need to be arduous or complicated and certainly does not require special tools. One of the simplest way to teach your child the alphabet is by using food. After all, your child needs to eat.

Here are some fun A-B-C food snacks to get you and your child started:

A Snacks: Almonds, Alphabet cereal, Alphabet soup, American cheese, Angel Food Cake, Animal Crackers, Apple Butter/Juice, Apples, applesauce, Apricot, Asparagus, Avocados

B Snacks: Banana splits, Bacon, Bagels, Baked Beans, Banana Bread, Barbecue Beans Bean Sprouts, Beets, Berries, Black Eyed Peas, Bran Muffins, Bread Sticks, Broth, Brownies, Brown Sugar, Brussel Sprouts, Butterscotch, Buttermilk, Beef, Bell Peppers, Biscuits, Bologna, Brazil Nuts

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C Snacks: Carrot sticks, Cucumber slices, Celery sticks, Cheese, Crackers, Cinnamon rolls, Cornbread, Cereal, Carrot juice, Cranberry juice, Cantaloupe, Cottage cheese, Cashews, Cupcakes, Cauliflower

D Snacks: Doughnuts, "Dirt" cakes (chocolate cupcakes), Deviled eggs, "Devil" sandwiches (put a devil face on bologna or cheese with condiment), Hot dogs

E Snacks: Eggs, English muffins, Egg drop soup, Hard-boiled eggs, Eggplant, Eskimo pies

F Snacks: French Fries, Corn Fritters, French Bread, Finger foods, Fig Newtons

G Snacks: green jello, graham crackers, garlic bread, garbanzo beans, goulash, green beans, greens grapes, grape juice, grapefruit, grapefruit juice, Gatorade, granola, guava, green split peas (or pea soup), grits, gingerbread, gummy candy (bears, worms, fish, etc.)

H Snacks: Ham, hamburger, hash, hazelnuts, hoagies, honey, honeydew melon, hot chocolate, hot dog, hot sauce

I Snacks: Ice, ice cream, ice tea, Italian bread, Ice cubes

J Snacks: Jam, Jambalaya, Jello, Jelly, jerky, johnnycakes, juice, jellybeans, Jello jigglers

K Snacks: Kiwi, Kite-shaped sugar cookies

L Snacks: Lemonade, Lemon cookies, Lemon sherbet, Lemon Lollipops, Lime koolaid

M Snacks: Muffins, Milk, Milkshakes, Macaroni and cheese, Marshmallows, M and Ms

N Snacks: Nachos, navy beans, nectarines, Neapolitan ice cream, noodles
nut bread, nuts (not for small children).

O Snacks: Oatmeal cookies, Oranges, Orange sweet rolls, Edible O's (using cookie dough), Olives

P Snacks: Peanut butter, pretzels, peanuts, popcorn, pasta, prunes, pineapple
pizza, potato pancakes, regular pancakes, cheese pretzels

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Q Snacks: Quiche, Quaker Oats, "Q" Cookies

R Snacks: Raisins, Rice and raisin pudding, Raisin-Apple Muffins, Rice cakes with peanut butter, Rice cakes (flavored), Red jello

S Snacks: Sandwiches, Sugar cookies, Salad, Soup, Strawberries, Salsa, Sour cream

Toast, Tea, Tangerines, Tuna, Teddy Grahams, Trix cereal, Taffy, Tapioca pudding, Tofu, Triscuit crackers, Tomato, Trident gum, Twix candy bar

Ugli Fruit{Also called Unique Fruit, it's a cross between an orange and a grapefruit}, upside-down Cake

Vegetables, Velveeta cheese, Vienna Sausages, Vegetable Soup, Velvet Cake, Vanilla Cookies, Vanilla pudding, vanilla ice cream, Vermicelli noodles

Walnuts, Waffles, Whipped cream, Wheat, Wieners, Watermelon

X-shaped cookies

Yams, Yogurt, Yellow cake, Yeast rolls

Zucchini, Zucchini Bread, Fried Zucchini (cut into strips like french fries, bread, and fry. Serve with ketchup!), Zesta saltine crackers, Zwieback Toast

To fill in with the letters without many snacks or to reinforce and review letters you can use condiments to create letters or build straight letters using pretzel sticks and the like. You can also trace letters in many foods such as peanut butter, whipped cream, frosting, mashed potatoes and so on. When the children are ready you can let them create letters out of foods too.

Pay Close Attention Here-

Now listen carefully! Take 2 minutes to read the next page and you'll discover how you can teach your child to read in just 12 weeks. Children who learn to read and develop fluent reading abilities early on has a huge advantage over their peers who did not have the opportunity to learn to read early. I think this is something that all parent should put to consideration seriously. If you believe that teaching your child to read and helping your child develop proficient reading skills is the key to future success, and if you wish to help your children develop to their fullest potential... then I strongly urge you to read everything on the next page - Click Here

Teaching a child to read is a very daunting prospect - for the child, as much as it is for the parent. Most children love books and what they see and "imagine" in them, but because they cannot read there is no connection between the book, what is in it, and the process of reading.

When you are home schooling your child you are taking the entire learning process and are adjusting it to suit your needs.

Many parents follow a set curriculum similar to the one's used in schools, other parents choose to unschool their children, others still prefer a religious based education.

Whatever your home schooling preference, the one thing all home schooling parents have in common is the need to teach their child to read and to read well.

So, getting back to: How to teach your child to read with phonics? I am going to say something very controversial here and state that the best way to teach your child to read with phonics is to teach them to read through sight reading first!

What?

Yes, you read correctly. In my experience as both a home schooling mother and as someone who has seen hundreds of other children taught in this way, the most crucial step to teaching your child to read at home is to make reading easy and fun.

If you can get your child to read a book within 30 days of starting, I guarantee that there will be no stopping them after that.

Children who cannot read proficiently by grade 3 are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than proficient readers - Here's How to Teach Your Child to Read Fluently

By starting with the look-and-say approach first you are both building your child's reading confidence as well as instilling a love for reading and wanting more.

Let me give you an example.

When I was a little girl I really wanted to play the piano. My first piano teacher taught me notes and scales for hours and hours and after about a year of lessons I could barely play anything at all.

Not very talented I hear you say. Well I thought so too, until I met my second teacher.

He asked me what songs I liked and whether I wanted to learn to play them. This excited me, because my ultimate goal was to play songs after all, and I began to practice more.

Within a few weeks I was playing better than an entire year's worth of lessons!

In other words by starting to play what interested me my confidence grew and I was soon practicing scales for hours a day.

In the same way, a child's main interest is to read a book. By accomplishing this early on in their reading evolution there is nothing they will not do to get better at it. And that's when you begin to teach them phonics.

Phonics is not required to learn to read, but it is necessary for making your child a good reader who can read on their own.

Phonics simply put is our "translating software". This allows a child to translate new words so that they can understand them. But like all good tools, they must be used for the right job.

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Teaching very young children to read is not a simple process, but it doesn't have to be difficult either. With a simple step-by-step reading program, you too, can teach your child to read at an early age and help your child achieve superb reading skills. To discover a super simple and powerful reading program that will show you how to easily teach your child to read - Click Here

Phonemic awareness is a critical skill for kids to have when they are getting ready to learn to read! Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can be differentiated in a word. For instance in the word "cat," the phonemes are the "c" sound, the "short a" sound, and the "t" sound.

Below are helpful strategies for teaching phonemic awareness.

Show printed material to the child:

Children benefit when they see phonemic instruction while simultaneously looking at the word in print. This allows them to make the connection between what they see and hear, a crucial skill for reading. Printed words allow them to see and apply the connection between sound and letters necessary for reading. It is very helpful to point to each letter and say each sound.

Use Short Sessions or Short Games:

Phonemic awareness lessons should be utilized for any child learning to read, or getting ready to learn. Research shows that children benefit most from short sessions (up to 30 minutes). Longer sessions may lead to children becoming frustrated or distracted. You can also turn it into a game. For example, you can take turns thinking of a word, the adult can write the word on a piece of paper, and you can take turns saying the sounds. It is helpful to practice rhyming words as well (i.e., cat, hat, bat).

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Clap or Tap the Syllables in Words:

Help children "break up" words by clapping or tapping out their syllables. First, model the tapping or clapping for the child. For example, the adult can show that the word "silly" has two syllables by clapping twice while reciting the word (/sil/ -clap- /ly/ -clap-). Then the child should try it independently and be encouraged to try it regularly. Praise the child for her effort!

Phoneme Substitution:

Play the song lyric game by changing a phoneme in a song to see how it changes the meaning of the lyrics. For example, "Pop Goes the Weasel" could be changed to "Hop Goes the Weasel." After changing the lyrics talk about how changing a phoneme gives the song a different meaning.

Practice at Home:

Research has shown that children who are frequently exposed to books at home prior to starting school have higher levels of phonemic awareness. Parents can model phonemic awareness by reading aloud to their children and allowing their children to see them reading. Give your children opportunities to practice early reading skills by talking, singing, rhyming, playing guessing games, and engaging in early writing activities.

Many in-service teachers are not knowledgeable in the basic concepts of the English language. They do not know how to address the basic building blocks of language and reading. - This is NOT a statement that we are making, rather, this is a finding from a study done at the Texas A&M University. Their study was aptly titled "Why elementary teachers might be inadequately prepared to teach reading." To discover the scientifically proven methods, that will enable you to teach your child to read, and help your child become a fast and fluent reader, visit Approaches to Teaching Reading

Learning to read is a long process, but it doesn't have to be a difficult process. Broken down into intuitive and logical steps, a child as young as two years old can learn to read, and older children can accomplish even more. For a simple, step-by-step program that can help your child learn to read - Click Here

Phonics--All Around Us With the recent decline of education that has been reported the past few years, many parents are concerned how to make sure their child does not fall behind and become an average statistic. Much of this decline in education has focused on the reading level of our children. With all the different languages spoken in American schools today, many students are falling behind in their reading ability. This decline could be slowed by the basic teaching of phonics. Many parents wonder how to teach phonics in the home. It is important to remember that we are teaching it everyday just by speaking. Nearly every word we speak has some element of phonics in it. Out children can learn the basics of phonics just by us talking and interacting with them.

Reading makes your child SMARTER, here's how to develope early reading skills

The more words a child hears, the better they will be. This same principle can be applied to reading. Research has shown that a more the student reads, the better they will read. The following are some general tips to help teach phonics to your child. Read to your child everyday. Even young infants can be read to. The brain will absorb those words and put them into a database, so to speak. They may not understand what certain words mean, but the exposure to these words is what is important. When a child gets old enough to read on his or her own, let them read to you. Seeing and saying these words will be the building block to understanding phonics. Because phonics is based on the alphabet and how the words work together, make sure your child knows the alphabet.

Once the child can say the alphabet error-free, do fun things to explore each sound. Have your child draw pictures to represent each letter. For example, your child could draw a zebra to represent the letter Z. Using this method, the sounds will become automatic to your child. Another good method to teach your child phonics is to wordchunk. This means cutting each word into parts, or sounds, and then combining these sounds into words. You could do this yourself or buy a phonics workbook, which have these already done for you. Without any special training, any parent can teach their child phonics. With the starting activities I have mentioned,your child will not become an average statistic. Phonics is just words - which are all around us.

Poor reading ability and literacy skills lead to reduced opportunities in life, and worse yet, "being illiterate is a guaranteed ticket to a dead end life with no skills and no future." For a step-by-step, easy to follow, and easy to understand lessons along with stories, rhymes, and colorful illustrations to make you and your child's learning to read process a fun, engaging, and rewarding experience - Click Here

When reading to your child, read slowly, and point to the words that you are reading to help the child make a connection between the word your are saying and the word you are reading. Always remember that reading should be a fun and enjoyable activity for your children, and it should never feel like a "chore" for them. Click here to help your child learn to read

Author's Bio: 

Now you can teach your child to read and make him or her develop critical, foundational reading skills that puts them years ahead of other children....even if they are having difficulties at learning to read! Visit Techniques for Teaching Reading

The first few years of life are the most important and critical for the development of literacy skills, and having a literacy-rich environment at home will ensure your child becomes a successful reader. Aside from reading to your child, specific instructions and teaching must be used to teach your child to read. For a simple, step-by-step program that will help you teach your child to read, visit Best Way to Teach Reading

Reading Makes Your Child Smarter, and Your Child Misses a GOLDEN Opportunity, If You Do Not Teach Your Child to Read Now. Discuss your child's reading problems on our forum. We can help you easily teach your child to read! Go to: Reading Forum