How I Taught My Children to Read by Three
I have always been a curious person and I love learning. When I had my babies I absolutely could not wait to share the wonders of the world with them. Starting when they were newborns, during every feeding, diaper-changing, and bathing time, I said the ABCs and numbers up to twenty. We know how babies recognize words before they're able to say them, so I figured it'd work with the alphabet as well…and it did. Before they were a year old, they'd try to copy each letter after me. It was just a grunt, but I knew they knew what it was supposed to sound like.
About that time I started showing them alphabet cards and number cards. They loved the challenge of matching the letters and numbers to the sounds they'd been hearing. By two, when I was letting them doodle with pencils and pens, guess what? They started making their own letters and numbers on the paper, although pretty shaky at first, with no prodding from me. It was the funnest game to them. They saw the shapes of letters everywhere, in the trees, the clouds, furniture. It just came naturally to then teach them phonics and graduate on to words, never spending more than fifteen minutes a day on it, except when they wanted to, which was often.
I believe children come into this world with an inborn love of learning, and since reading is pretty much the basis of all learning in our society, teaching them to read unlocks a million doors to them. And they feel empowered. My kids would read their talks in Primary by age four and did not want me to stand beside them.
My boys were, of their own accord, reading astronomy books and memorizing locations all over the globe when their same-age peers were learning their colors and pattern shapes.
They loved the numbers as well and we started using Cheerios, pennies, etc., to add and subtract single-digit numbers when they were two.
Granted, I only have two children (now 10 and 6), so my experiment's only been tried twice, but I thought those of you with babies and toddlers may want to give it a try. It takes perseverance on Mom's part because saying the alphabet and numbers to a tiny baby a few times a day can seem really boring. You may even feel foolish and wonder if it's a waste of time. But stick with it, and enlist the help of older siblings too. It's sure been worth it at our house.
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