I have had the privilege and opportunity of teaching 3/4 of my kids how to read.

My eldest daughter attended day care and preschool and they mostly took care of all the potty training and teaching her the alphabet and reading. I just reinforced what they taught at home. She caught on to reading very easily and quickly at the age of 4 and took off, devouring bigger and bigger books.

My middle two daughters are very different in personality and ability. The older one is very analytical and the younger one is a free spirit.

My youngest, the boy, is five and already finishing up a phonics program. He loves early readers about animals and transportation. He prefers level 3 books already!

I hated reading until I was in junior high school, so I have no worries about having four lifelong lovers of books.

We have a house filled with books and we take library trips at least weekly. Reading is our go-to for learning. Our main curriculum is completely focused on literature and history.

Sometimes, young readers need a little help with distractions. I don’t want reading time to foster negative feelings of frustration or dread.

I’ve found a few early reading tools that assist with focus.

Teaching reading to young children is a challenge for me. I was trained as a high school English teacher, so early childhood education got me a little anxious. I relied on teaching books and reading programs to guide us through that process. I took cues from my kids with what worked and what wasn’t as exciting or needed.

Our favorite reading curricula:

I used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with my first child. She also learned well with A Beka preK and K curricula.

My younger three kids love All About Reading.

My middle girls liked Logic of English. Reading our reviews of Logic of English here and here.

I read aloud to my kids every day, usually morning and evening. I encourage my girls to take turns reading aloud to me and to each other. In the evenings, we all read aloud from the Bible. My son has started reading his memory verse every morning. As with anything, practice makes perfect.

All my kids are well on their way to reading fluency, but sometimes get stuck and need a little help along the way.

Usually, it’s distractions or daydreaming that make them lose their place in the text. Sometimes, it’s just forgetting a sound or word.

I like these mini plastic pointers to follow each words as we read. They give fidgety fingers something to hold onto and stay on task by tapping each word as it’s read.

These small reading strips help to focus on a line of text at a time. They make great bookmarks too!

The bigger reading guides show a whole paragraph in the view finder. This is helpful to practice or wean off the smaller reading strips.

There are many variations in the reading guides.

Full page reading guides might help tone down harsh fluorescent lighting or help tired eyes. The translucent pages also multitask with a light box or color blending at a window!

Alex has grown into quite the reader lately! We love All About Reading and it has helped me teach all the phonics rules and sight words for Alex to take off reading well on his own.

Alex really loves reading about dogs and cats lately.

Favorite Early Readers:

Our Favorite Reading Helps:

Linking up: A Proverbs 31 Wife, Donna Reidland, The Modest Mom, Marilyns Treats, The Quintessential Mommy, The Crazy Organized Blog, Blogghetti, The Practical Mom, Curly Craft Mom, Life of Faith, Living Montessori Now, Written Reality, F Dean Hackett, Sarah Celebrates, VMG206, Crystal and Co, Raising Homemakers, A Wise Woman Builds Her Home, A Little R&R, Classical Homemaking, Whole Hearted Home, Pat and Candy, Oh My Heartsie Girl, Frogs Lilypad, I Choose Joy, Bloom Designs, A Kreative Whim, Lamberts Lately, Organized 31, Create with Joy, Life with Lorelai, Happy and Blessed Home, Sincerely Paula,