Teaching a child to read seemed so scary at first. Although we loved to read, it seemed such a complex task to start to teach our first little guy. That was nearly twenty years ago, though, and after teaching seven children to read, there are few things we wish we'd known then:

God made us to read. He gave us His Word in written form and commands us to "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15) If He commands it, He's created us to do. Really, it's not that hard. Eventually, your children will read! This was a huge comfort to us with our late readers.

Teach all the short letter sounds before you start teaching reading. This will make the early days of phonics much easier! We get a notebook and write each letter. We take a day or two per letter and draw pictures for words that start with the short sounds of the letters for the child to color. We play "What does this letter say?" in place of Mother May I, giving fun tasks like "Take two kangaroo jumps," after they say the correct sound. The Three R's Series by Ruth Beechick has lots of great ideas for fun ways to teach the sounds.

You can't make a child be developmentally ready to read, though. If your child learns a letter, then some days can remember it and other days it's like he's never seen it before, he just isn't ready to read. There's nothing wrong with that! Kids that learn later tend to learn pretty fast. We had one child become a fluent reader at 4 years old and another at 11. They are equally intelligent--just different. By high school, both were reading at a collegiate level. One thing you can do in the meantime is to have them make the alphabet out of clay or play dough. That really helps some children cement the shapes and directions in their heads.

Keep your children motivated to learn to read by reading aloud and sharing audiobooks with them. That will remind them how fun and exciting reading can be. It will also teach them to understand the way written language sounds. That will be a huge help in reading comprehension once they are reading for themselves!

Beyond those things, any decent curriculum will do. Just follow the directions and watch God's amazing creation as the world of reading opens up for your child. It's a joy that never grows old! Isaac Watts wrote a hymn for children who'd just learned to read:

The praises of my tongue
I offer to the Lord,
That I was taught, and learnt so young
To read his holy Word.

Amen!

Yours in the battle,

Hal & Melanie Young

P.S. We are delighted to announce that our new book is finally open for preorders. Click here and order it now for Christmas delivery! You can find our selection of audiobooks at this link.  

Chess is Child's Play

Chess is Child's Play, is a 26 chapter, 302 page book written by Laura Sherman and Bill Kirkpatrick. It helps you to teach your children chess by breaking it down into small and simple steps. It can be used to teach children beginning at age 2 all the way up. It even taught me how to play chess. Each lesson has a mini game to go along with it to help cement in the learning of the game, which also makes learning chess fun!

The preface is full of the many benefits of playing chess. They range from sportsmanship to problem solving, self-confidence, greater patience and focus and so much more. The lessons are a chapter, a few pages long, that you the parent read and then teach your child through games how to play chess. The games start off very simple to help you learn each piece's name and how they can move. Chess manners are discussed as well. As you work your way further through the book the lessons build on each other and get more complex. Before you realize it, you know how to play chess, as does your child. You both will have a great time along the way as well.

While we do own a few chess boards our family had no prior chess experience. This book has made teaching chess easy. We were able to work on it 3 nights a week learning chess. Each lesson and game took about 15 minutes to master. I like that I am able to teach them together and then they can play the simple games together until the next lesson. We are all learning together, even me. My 3 children who range in ages 7-13 have all been able to learn together. (. . .)

(To read the rest of the review, click HERE.)