Teaching a child how to read is quite possibly the most intimidating task for anyone interested in homeschooling a young child. Our simple guide and our free Alphablocks playlist will make the entire process easier.
Teaching Phonics Doesn’t Need to Be Complicated
Part of the reason so many parents struggle to teach reading is that the entire process had been made needlessly complex by modern educators. Most phonics curricula come with extensive teacher instructions that make it seem as though you need to become a trained expert before you can even get started. Some of them come with a giant box of equipment filled with flashcards, workbooks, lesson plans, instructional materials, peculiar manipulatives, and all manner of other items.
You really don’t need all that stuff. You also don’t need to be an expert in early childhood education. At the preschool level, the only things you actually need are a few alphabet books and the Alphablocks and Leapfrog videos, which we’ll go over in this post.
The Leapfrog: Letter Factory Will Teach Your Child the Letter Sounds
The Letter Factory is a superb resource that every homeschool family should have. Unfortunately, the video was published more than twenty years ago (in 2003), and it has become a little difficult to find the DVDs in good condition. The easiest way to get it is by purchasing a digital version on YouTube for $9.99 or on Amazon for $17.99. You can also find it on certain streaming services, so you might want to check if you already have access to it through an existing subscription.
The video is short (only a little more than 30 minutes), but it is packed with good information that is delivered through catchy songs and quirky visuals. Play it numerous times for your child (at least 5-10 times total) over the course of several weeks.
Practice the Letter Sounds Every Day
Meanwhile, go over the letters every day:
- Sing the Alphabet song (the one everyone learns as a child).
- Go over any alphabet books you have (we’re quite fond of A is for Apple and The ABCs of D&D, but it doesn’t matter a great deal which specific books you use). Touch each letter and say its name and the sound it makes. For example, “This is ‘E’. It makes the ‘eh’ sound.” Be sure to make the same sounds that are used in the Letter Factory video. You can also try writing the letters on a blackboard or a piece of paper and saying their names and sounds. Go over both uppercase and lowercase letters.
You don’t need to spend more than 10-15 minutes on this each day, but try to be consistent about it. You’ll continue this routine throughout preschool.
Alphablocks is the Best Resource to Start Teaching Phonics
Alphablocks is a wonderful show that teaches phonics to young children in a fun, unintimidating way. It depicts all the letters of the alphabet as anthropomorphized blocks that play games and go on adventures together. Whenever some of the blocks organize themselves into the correct order to spell a word, they cause a corresponding magic effect. For example, if they spell the word “cow”, it might cause a cow to appear, whereas if they spell the word “up”, the blocks might begin floating into the sky.
The early episodes cover simple two- and three-letter words. Later episodes introduce consonant blends, “the magic ‘e'”, long vowels, and many other important phonics ideas. The show eventually teaches how to sound out words like “elephant”, “true”, “thousand”, “yacht”, etc.
Watch Alphablocks for free using our playlist
Much like Numberblocks, the full Alphablocks show is available free of charge from the official Alphablocks YouTube channel; however, the channel is not organized in a way that makes it easy to watch the episodes in order. To solve this problem, we’ve created a YouTube playlist that organizes all of the episodes of Alphablocks in the correct order for young students.
We recommend that you play 15-20 minutes of the playlist for your child every day. When you reach the end of the playlist, just start back at the beginning. You should go through the entire playlist several times in preschool.
Don’t expect your preschooler to sound out entire words, yet
In preschool, you shouldn’t expect your child to be able to sound the Alphablocks words out themselves, but there is enormous value in introducing phonics concepts to children at an early age. Even if it isn’t initially obvious, your child will learn an enormous amount from simply watching the show.
Don’t drill your child on the material taught by Alphablocks; there will be plenty of time for that in higher grade levels. You’ll find that this early exposure to phonics will make your job much easier when it is time for your child to really start reading.
Also consider The Talking Words Factory and Word Caper
There are two other videos by Leapfrog that you should also consider playing for your child: The Talking Words Factory and Word Caper. Official versions of these videos are available for free on YouTube (here is the link for The Talking Words Factory, and here is the link for Word Caper). These videos begin teaching children how to read using phonics. They aren’t nearly as extensive as Alphablocks, but they are still of excellent quality and provide a great opportunity to help children explore phonics from a slightly different perspective.
That’s Everything You Need for Preschool Composition
By playing the Alphablocks and Leapfrog videos we’ve described, you’ll be giving your child a massive head-start on learning how to read. We’ve already said this, but we’ll repeat it again: your child doesn’t need to be able to sound out words in preschool. The purpose of playing these videos is simply to get children thinking about ideas that will be revisited in later grade levels, not to produce a child prodigy who can read chapter books before kindergarten (although if that happens naturally, great!).
For completion of preschool composition, the only real requirement is that your child should be able to say the names and sounds of each letter. Don’t try to move on to a higher grade level until your child can do this reliably, for both uppercase and lowercase letters.
Content Advisory
In Alphablocks, the letter “g” sometimes says the words “gosh” and “golly”.
