Previously, I taught my babies how to read at an early age. As early as 2 years old I saw my baby reading. It came through consistent effort that only took a few minutes a day. I would like to do it again with my fourth baby who is currently 9 months old. I have a system that works for my children that works. Check out how I am starting early reading skills with my baby and teaching her letter sounds.
If you have read my blog posts or watched my Youtube videos before, you know that there are steps that I take prior to introducing letter sounds. First is reading books multiple times a day, and speaking 30,000 words a day to my little one. Then I add on showing sight words as a concrete way to single out the words in the books I have been reading. And finally, I focus on the individual letters that make up the words and the sounds they produce. Understanding the sounds of the letters is far more important to reading phonetically than the letter names.
Don’t get me wrong, I teach my children letter names; however, I focus on letter sounds first. I learned about this technique via the Montessori Method and it has been a game changer for teaching my children to read earlier.
Supplies You Will Need
Let’s talk about what you need to teach your little one to read the way that I did. First, you will need to create flashcards to show the baby on a daily basis. This will require a printer, scissors and a laminator. I highly suggest getting a laminator. I will include a full list of affiliate links at the bottom of this post of all the things you will need. My babies were very rough with my flashcards. I learned the hard way that using construction paper was not enough. I needed a laminator. That was important.
Starting with Lowercase Letters
It is a little easier to separate lowercase letters from uppercase letters at first and then slowly introduce that they still make the same sound in general. This introduction of two symbols making the same sound is important to building the connection later on that one sound can have multiple symbols to represent the sound. The English language has 26 letters in the alphabet, but 44 phonemic sounds that make up the language.
The Routine for Learning
For very young children, it is important to keep academic learning fun and brief. Although learning letter sounds may seem like a complex activity to adults, it is much easier for a baby to learn letter sounds than to learn how to walk. Keep this in mind as you prioritize activities throughout the day with your baby. I like to keep our letter sound learning sessions very brief. Each session is no more than 5 minutes and happens 3 times a day. Each week I select 5-10 letter sounds that I will review for that week. The following week I will switch out those letter sounds for the new ones. I will repeat these steps until mastery. How do I determine mastery?
Testing for Understanding
If the baby is nonverbal, which is common for babies under 12 months old, you can do several things to test for understanding. You can try teaching them sign language for each letter. Then they can answer your letter sound quiz questions with the sign for the letter. I have done this in the past. It is really cute to see them sign the letter, but it isn’t necessary if you feel that you do not have the time to learn and use the alphabet signs. Another simple way of testing a young baby is to ask which flashcard says the sounds. If they consistently pick the correct flashcard, then count this as a sign of understanding.
If you watched my Youtube video for this post you will see my 9 month old daughter trying to say the letter sounds as I show them to her. If your baby does the same thing, then try to show the flashcard and pause. If the baby says the correct sound before you say the sound then use this testing method as a way of measuring comprehension.
I will continue to share my journey and my results. Comment below how things are going with you and your little one as well.
List of Supplies:
3. Printer
4. Scissors
