A secret for teaching a child to read

My youngest son is in first grade this year. He could read a bit when he started the school year. Throughout the year,  he's slowly progressed. He brought home reading passages to practice reading to me. I read to him a lot. We've read almost all the Narnia books this year. He read to me a little. Then within the past month, he went from having to sound out most words and only doing well with short vowel sounds, to reading almost anything and everything he sees. What happened? I saw this with my other four children as well. Was it that his teacher worked with him in reading groups all year? Yes. Was it the practice homework passages? Maybe. Was it me reading to him? Well, that's just fun. Was it the testing and pushing to get better? No. I think that if you immerse a child in reading and don't push, when the child's mind is read, it clicks. It's fascinating and exciting. So, that's the secret. Immerse your child in reading and one of the best ways to do that is to read scriptures out loud.

We read scriptures together as a family every weekday morning, early, taking turns reading a few verses. The scriptures are hard to read, hard to understand. They are challenging. For a few years, my son has "read" one verse a day. For a while, I said the words and he repeated them. Then I pointed to the words and helped him sound them out or waited for him to recognize sight words. "And it came to pass" is in innumerable verses in The Book of Mormon. He learned that phrase right away. Now within the past month he's reading two verses out loud for our scripture study with only a tiny bit of assistance.

Our foreign exchange student also reads one verse out loud. Reading in a language is more complex than speaking. She's had to figure out some difficult words. She's also become a better reader.

When a task is challenging, learning will occur. The scriptures are challenging. Use them to build the spiritual strengthen of your family and to build your child's reading skills. It works. And you can count it on homework reading charts!