If your little one knows ALL of their letters, upper and lower, and has demonstrated a lot of the reading skills that shows you that he/she is ready for books, then you can actually start making books and teaching him/her “sight words.” Sight words are common words in books that you want your little ones to know at first sight. I called them “heart” words because I told the kids I wanted them to know the words by heart. Whatever you call them, you can start teaching your little ones words to memorize and then give your little one practice by reading the new word in a SIMPLE book.

Here is what I mean by a SIMPLE book:
The book will only have about two words per page. The first word will be the same on EVERY page, and the second will be the word for the picture on the page.
So your first page might say “The cat” with a picture of a cat, and then “The dog” on the next page with a picture of a dog.

This is so that you can teach your little one the word “the” before you read the book and then ask them to figure out what the next word on the page is using some clues:
What sound does the word start with? What word tells about the picture? Does the word make sense with the theme of the book? (animals, pets, etc)

Casey with Kidspired Creations shared the book that she made with her son called “The Pets.”
Her son is reading the word “the” and sounding out the second word, but not all children will be able to sound out the second word just yet. That skill is a product of practicing other reading skills.
Here is the book that Casey made:

And here is her description of the book:

“The Pets.
the dogs.
the cat.
the frog.
the pig.
the bug.
the duck.
the pets.

CVC words, sight word “the”, 2 plural words and one “ck”, /k/ sound.”

For More on Mini Book Reading Readiness, Read:
When Can I Start With Little Books

And Little Books For Your Little Ones to Read

If you haven’t read “When Can I Start Using Little Books?”  go go go and read about that first! 🙂

For those of you who have read it, let’s get on the ball…

You probably noticed that there are soo many books that it is hard to know where to start. 

If this is the FIRST time your child will be “reading” books, then you need to start with the most basic book you can find.  Your child needs to know all their letters and have mastered a lot of the reading skills to be ready for this, but if not, you can always read the little books (that I refer to in this post) TO your children.  So either way, let that be your activity today!

This is how I teach children to read little books:

1)      I pick a book on their level (see how I “level” books below); then I internally observe all the things about the book I want to teach: content, words, and beginning sounds.

2)      I introduce the book by telling kids the title.  Then I ask them to make guesses (or “predictions”  – if you wanna be fancy) about what the book will be about based on the title and front cover picture.

3)      I ask the kids to go on a “picture walk” with me to look at all the pictures and just TALK about them….not reading the words this time through.

4)      Then we close the book and I teach them the sight words in the book.  (I call these “heart words” that I want them to put in their heart so they will know it by heart everytime they see it. )

5)      I ask them to open their books and find the heart words and put their finger on it.

6)       Then we go over all the sounds that the other words start with so if the word “ball” is in the book then I would ask them what sound the letter “b” makes and get them to brainstorm words that start with that sound.

7)      Finally, I have the kids read the book to me, with me there to help (don’t tell them the words they are stuck on, ask them questions to get them thinking about what the word is).

8)      Last, they read the book to themselves and then draw a page and write their own variation of that page.  So, if the book is about animals they would draw their own favorite animal and tell me about it so that I can help them write the words for their page.

*There are variations to this sequence but this is a great place to start.

This is how I decide the difficulty of beginner books:

Level 1 won’t have ANY sight words.  There will probably only be ONE word on the page and that will be the word that describes the picture “dog” for a picture of a dog, or “brown” for the picture of a brown dog.   Example found Here.

Level 2 will incorporate ONE or TWO EASY basic words like “a” or “the.”  One example is found Here and another here.

Level 3 will incorporate a full sentence made up of just 3 words (2 sight words and one word that tells about the picture.  Examples: “I can” and “I see” books.

Level 4 will incorporate about THREE basic sight words that your child has already learned from levels 2 and 3.

And so on and so on. I think now you get the picture.  Other books can be found at

Hubbard’s Cupboard

JMeacham

DLTKS

Saskschools Ebooks

A-Z Reading

 OR, you can always make your own!

There is alot more levels and a lot more information on this.  I am just easing you into it IF you want to help your little one with this! 🙂

If you have ANY questions about this (it is A LOT of info) please:

I was watching home videos the other day, re-living so many great memories; but now, as a teacher, I observed one clip in a new light. It was me, five years old, reading a mini decodable book: “Jack can read, see him read, read well Jack!” At that time, I was so proud of myself, hogging the spotlight and angry when my three year old little sister chimed in.

Looking at that clip through a new lens there is nothing more enjoyable than sharing in a five year olds excitement that he/she can read! And even more so, wishing I would have shared that WITH my three year old little sister because, three year olds can learn to read. GRANTED, there is a process. Everyone wants to adopt the quick “My Baby Can Read” fix. And that is understandable, but I want to introduce some important guidelines to introducing little decodable books:

Here are pictures of my little book bin at home, filled with little Ziploc baggies of printed books and the words that I introduce before teaching little ones to read them.

You can start teaching print concepts as early as you can. These are concepts about the structure of books such as books tell a story, pictures tell about the story, words tell about the pictures, how to properly hold the book, how to turn pages the right way (one at a time), how to follow the text of a books one word at a time from left to right and then return back to the left time to read the next line. There are others but these are the book basics. That is why reading with children every day is important because you expose them to the functions of a book. This is their reading foundation.
In the meantime, while your child is learning these print concepts, you should practice letter naming and phonemic awareness. These three skills: 1) print concepts, 2) letter naming, and 3) phonemic awareness, are parallel to each other. They are go hand-in-hand and can be learned alongside each other. Phonemic awareness is the main skill that follows a sequence.
IF, your child has gotten to the point where he/she can isolate sounds in words (hearing the /b/ sound at the beginning of “bear”) THEN he/she is ready to start reading little decodable books.

The three sites I use most to get my decodable books are:
1) Hubbard’s Cupboard
2) JMeacham
3) DLTK

But there is an absolute ART to teaching children in sequence how to read these little books, and I will share some tips for the trade in my next post 
As for Today, if your child is at the point in their development where they are READY for this step, I want you to look through the different books and make a few observations: You are LEARNING today:
~How many words are in the pages of the books (some have 2 words per page, others 10 words per page)?
~Is the book repetitive (the same words repeating on every page with the exception of a new picture/word in one’s place that describes the picture)?
~Is the book of interest to your child (Is the book about a topic your child cares about)?
~What words would your child have to learn before being able to read the book?

Don’t try teaching your child to read the books YET. Just learn about the books and PRINT a few of the SIMPLE books – 2 or 3 words per page.
This is a great start! You are a great parent to want to invest in your child in this way!