Are you wondering how to help your child develop early reading skills? Perhaps you're unsure when it’s the right time to start, or you’re confused about the best approach. Whether you're a first-time parent or a homeschool educator, understanding how to help your child with early reading skills can be tricky.

In this post, we’ll debunk three common misconceptions about teaching your child to read and give you helpful tips to ensure a smooth learning journey.

Learning to read actually begins before birth when a child is surrounded by language. Hearing the sounds of language before birth sets the stage for learning to read.

Children naturally learn to speak from being immersed in a world of speech. However, reading does not come naturally because it’s based on an invented alphabetic code that has to be practiced and learned. If you want to read a particular language, you have to know its unique code.

In the first few years of life, a child’s brain grows and develops at a rapid pace. This is an important time for setting a child up for success in life. Children need a variety of experiences to build background knowledge. They need foundational skills that make learning easy. Reading is essential for learning, and it’s so easy to help a child learn to read. 

Misconception #1 - You Need a Degree to Teach Your Child to Read

Young children can learn to read, and you don’t need a degree to help them do this. All you need to know is a little bit about phonics and how to make learning to read fun and engaging.

Anyone can teach reading and you can too. Research shows us that there are three important foundational skills children need to become strong readers. They need to:

1. Connect letter shapes to letter sounds, 
2. Blend letter sounds together to make words, and 
3. Tear words apart into sounds so they can read those words. 

At Juneberry Learning, we are happy to help you with this. Our Alphabites Game Pack has 26 playful learning games to teach letter shapes and sounds. Alphabites also comes with exclusive access to our Quickstart guide containing additional support and a pronunciation video.

Misconception #2 - Your Child is Too Young to Learn to Read

There is no perfect age for teaching reading. The journey actually begins before birth and continues throughout life. Learning to read should be a natural part of daily life that is designed with each individual child’s needs in mind.

As a parent, you know your child best so you are their first and best teacher. We know you want to give your child a head start in building foundational skills that prepare them for success in life. Getting a head start is important because classrooms are overcrowded. Twenty-seven children in a Kindergarten class (yes, that is how many some teachers have) is way too many needy learners crammed into a small space.

Teachers are dealing with too many early learners with diverse needs, and they can’t possibly give the attention to individual students that they so wish they could. We know that the early years are critical for future academic success. Your child will be so much better off if they have learned pre-reading skills before they go to Kindergarten. 

If you help your child connect letter shapes and sounds, they will quickly move to reading simple words, then sentences and stories. Once they have a basic foundation, they actually begin to teach themselves new words.  Learning to read is one of the most exciting adventures you can share with your child.

Misconception #3 - Reading Will Just Happen Naturally

Learning to speak happens naturally as children listen to other people talk, but learning to read does not happen by listening to other people reading.

Written language is a special code that connects the sounds of language to squiggles on the page. There are many of these codes, so to read a language, you have to learn its specific code.

The code for English includes 26 alphabet letters, ~44 letter sounds, along with 26 upper and 26 lower case letter shapes. It sounds like a lot to learn, but your child has learned so much: family and friend’s names, colors, numbers, complex dinosaur names, cartoon characters, foods, and so much more. So, with a little help from you and playing the fun Alphabites games they should have no problem learning the alphabetic code.

You can’t learn to read if you don’t know the code, so helping your child learn the code is the first step in building a strong foundation for reading. Anyone can do this, and so can you. It only takes 5 minutes a day of bite sized learning and it’s so worth it.

Summary

So to summarize, the 3 most common misconceptions about learning to read:

Misconception #1: You need a degree to teach your child to read.

FACT: You don’t need a degree to teach your child to read. You can help your child develop early reading skills, so they will be successful in school and in life.

Misconception #2: Your child is too young to learn to read.

FACT: Reading begins before birth. A child is never too young to learn early reading skills.

Misconception #3: Reading comes naturally. 

FACT: Reading doesn’t come naturally. You have to learn the alphabetic code to read.

Start small, turn learning into a game, and enjoy helping your child learn to read. It’s the most important skill they need for future academic and career success. Our Alphabites Game Pack makes it easy and fun to build early reading skills. Order your pack today and get access to the Bonus Quick Start Guide and more playful learning ideas. 

Sources

Boonk, L., Gijselaers, H. J. M., Ritzen, H., Brand-Gruwel, S. (2018). A review of the relationship between parental involvement indicators and academic achievement. Educational Research Review. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1747938X18301027?via%3Dihub

Dean III, D. C., Tisdall, M. D., Wisnowski, J. L., Feczko, E., Gagoski, B., Alexander, A. L., ... & HBCD MRI Working Group. (2024). Quantifying brain development in the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study: The magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy protocol. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 70, 101452. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929324001130 

Ehri, L.C. (2014) Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading 18(1). https://registrar.ecu.edu/wp-content/pv-uploads/sites/257/2019/07/ehri.pdf 

Kim, Y. S. G., Harris, K. R., Goldstone, R., Camping, A., & Graham, S. (2024). The Science of Teaching Reading is Incomplete without the Science of Writing: A Randomized Control Trial of Integrated Teaching of Reading and Writing. Scientific Studies of Reading, 29(1), 32–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2024.2380272