Can Talking Help Your Child Read?

Learning to talk is natural for most kids. Just by listening to you, they absorb words. Sounds. Speech patterns.

If only reading worked that way!

Learning to read takes years of effort. But did you know that certain oral tasks can help your child’s literacy?

It’s true! Research shows that phonemic awareness – the ability to hear sounds and break them into smaller parts – is the best predictor of early reading success. This blog post will show you how to help your child develop this skill.

What is a phoneme?

Phonemes – The building blocks of literacy.
Photo credit: Photostock

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. For example, tail is one syllable. But you can break it down into three phonemes: t-, -ai- and –l.

Note that some phonemes consist of more than one letter. A and i are two letters, but they make one sound.

No wonder phonemic awareness is so important for young readers! How can kids learn to spell, read and write… if they can’t distinguish between sounds?

There is a lot of variation between each child. But those with learning disabilities tend to struggle more with phonemic awareness.

Luckily, research shows that it can be taught! Spending just a few minutes per day doing speech tasks with your child will help improve their literacy.

But what tasks should you do?

Here are a few activities we recommend. Remember, the goal of these activities is to help your child:

1.     Rhyming games. These are fairly easy to invent. You can play them over breakfast, in the car, while shopping – or anywhere! Try:

-       “I’m going to say two words. If they rhyme, give me a big thumbs-up! If they don’t, I want a big thumbs-down.”

-       “Finish this rhyme for me: “All, _____? Chair, ____?”

-       “Let’s see how many words we can think of that rhyme with fly! Now let’s try red!”

2.     Books. Many children’s books are based on rhymes and word play. As you read these books with your child, pause at the ends of phrases and let finish with you. Or you can ask them to point out words that rhyme. Some books we love are:

-       Little Book of Alliterations by Felix Archer

-       Some Smug Slug by Pamela Duncan Edwards

-       Oh, The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss

-       The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

-       Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes

-       Walter Was Worried by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

-       Animalia by Graeme Base

3.  Use songs to teach sound substitution. Choose a song you and your child know and sing it together. Sing it again. But this time, add a new sound to the beginning of each word in the song. Try “Old MacDonald.”

-       For a cow, sing, “And on this farm, he had a cow / Kee-Kigh, Kee-Kigh Ko.”

-       For a sheep, sing, “And on this farm, he had a sheep / She-shigh, she-shigh sho.”

We also love “The Name Game,” by Shirley Ellis.

Our list is not exhaustive – we’re sure you and your kids can think of many more ways to practice phonemic awareness. Feel free to share your ideas in the comments section!