On Teaching My Three-Year-Old to Read
What worked, what didn’t, and what we learned along the way
Around her third birthday, my daughter Eva sounded out her first words. I remember the excitement we both felt as she put the sounds together.
Those first moments were the beginning of a journey of early literacy that has spanned the past two years. Eva just turned five, and I still haven’t gotten over the wonder of her sounding out words, deciphering sentences, and making stories come to life.
This article explores the process of teaching my daughter to read during her preschool years. It’s about what we did, but also about the questions that came up for us along the way — questions about whether it’s wise to teach a preschooler to read or not, about when to keep working and when to take a break, about how to foster a love of reading, and about how to build a positive rapport and routine around learning from a young age.
Making Reading Part of Our Daily Routine
As a two-year-old, Eva recognized letters she saw in the world around her — chalk letters on the sidewalk, metallic capitals on manhole covers, logos on t-shirts— she saw letters everywhere.
Around age three, I started teaching her to read using Teach Your Child to Read…
