No matter what I'm teaching that day, there's only one main goal: that my child ends the lesson feeling good about her abilities. If I manage that, we're doing great.

To help her succeed, I need to have a good sense of where she is right now. What can she already do comfortably? What's just a little bit harder?

Every lesson is built around that.

I start with a review of something she already knows. Once she's feeling confident, I introduce one new challenge that's only a little harder than what she's already doing successfully.

If she struggles with the review, we spend longer there. If she flies through it, we can spend more time on the new challenge. I don't need a rigid lesson plan because I'm following what she needs that day.

If the new challenge is too difficult, I keep asking myself: How can I make this a little easier for her?

I'll give her as much help as she needs to succeed. If she needs a lot of support, that doesn't worry me. It just tells me this is a tricky skill and she needs more time with it. I trust that even with my help, she's learning, and the next time we practice she'll probably need a little less.

The key is staying calm and confident when your child struggles. Your belief in your child's ability becomes their belief in their own ability.

The first thing I taught both of my daughters was the letter sounds.

I kept it simple. I used a set of flashcards with uppercase and lowercase letters shown together. I liked teaching both at the same time because I didn't want to teach every letter twice. 

I also didn't start with the whole alphabet.

Instead, I chose a handful of easy letters: M, A, S, T, R, and O. 

They were easy to recognize and pronounce, and gave my daughters some early successes.

Those early successes mattered a lot. My daughters loved the feeling of getting it right. They were proud of themselves, and that excitement made them eager to keep learning. 

We'd spend a few minutes looking at the cards. 

Sometimes I'd say, "This says /a/."

Other times I'd say, "This is the letter A. It says /a/."

Either approach is perfectly fine. I personally focused on the sounds first because my goal wasn't for my daughters to name the letters, it was for them to start reading. We focused more on letter names once they were already blending simple words.

Our Favorite Letter-Sound Game

Once my daughters knew a few sounds, we'd turn it into a game.

I'd spread eight or nine flashcards on the floor and call out a sound. Their job was to find the matching card.

Sometimes they'd jump on it.

Sometimes they'd tap it.

Sometimes we'd have a favorite toy stomp on it.

It doesn't sound all that exciting, so honestly, I was pretty surprised by how much both of my daughters loved this game. They were so proud when they got a sound right, and we celebrated right along with them. Looking back, I think that feeling of success is what kept it fun for them.

Was She Ready to Read Her First Word?

How did I know my daughter was ready to read that very first word? Honestly, I didn't wait until she knew every letter perfectly. I just wanted to see that she recognized most sounds quickly. If I held up a card and she said the sound right away, then I knew she'd learned it well and was ready to move on to the next step: blending sounds.

How I Taught her to Blend Sounds

I had no idea how tricky sound blending was until I sat down to teach my daughter for the first time. Blending seemed obvious to me. I can say two sounds and hear how they would combine to form a word. (/a/+/m/ = /am/)

But the first time I did this with my daughter, she didn’t get it. When I pointed to each sound, she could say them just fine. But even if she said both sounds, one after another, she didn’t understand how they combined together.

It turned out blending is one of those skills that takes a little practice before it clicks. By the time I taught my younger daughter, I wasn’t phased at all that for the first few sessions she was struggling to blend words. I kept modeling the blending and inviting her to join in.

I’d ask her to read each sound, for instance:

"/a/ ... /m/"

Then I'd model how to blend them. 

I'd stretch out the sounds slowly without pausing between the sounds:

"Aaaaaammmmm..."

Then I'd say it a little faster so she could hear how it became the word “am”.

Each time I’d invite her to join in and say the sounds with me. As she became more confident, I would pause and let her try to start the blending. And eventually, she felt comfortable enough to sound out her first two-letter word, all by herself. 

Neither of my daughters understood blending right away. If they got stuck, I simply modeled it again and invited them to join in with me. I trusted that with practice, it would eventually click. After about a week of short sessions, it did for both of them. 

So I’d tell other parents, if your child is having a hard time blending, don’t stress about it. Just don’t get frustrated and keep the sessions short. What you’re doing is helping, even if you don’t see it yet, and they will get there.

One resource I found especially helpful was the free videos from Toddlers Can Read, which demonstrate how to model blending for young children. I'll link those below because seeing it done is often easier than reading about it.

Toddler’s Can Read Blending Sounds Video

Practicing Two-Letter Words

Once my daughter understood how to blend sounds, we still needed time to practice. We practiced until she could comfortably read almost any simple two-letter word I wrote on the whiteboard. 

When she could do that, I knew she understood blending well enough to move on to a slightly harder challenge: three-letter words.

At first, we only practiced one word at a time on the whiteboard. But once she grew more confident, I started giving her groups of words. I’d write a set on the whiteboard.

The word lists always followed simple patterns. Maybe the words were all the same, and only the middle vowel changed: 

For example:

- Pat, Pet, Pit, Put, Pot

Or they all ended in the same way:

- Jam, Pam, Sam, Cam, Ham

My daughters caught on to these patterns surprisingly quickly. And yes, lists like this absolutely make reading easier…but that's the point. Early on, I wanted reading to feel challenging enough that they were learning, but easy enough that they kept succeeding and wanted to come back the next day. 

Eventually we'd move on to harder lists and random CVC words, but only after they were reading the patterned lists comfortably. There was no rush. They kept practicing, and little by little they improved. 

Once my daughters were comfortably blending two-letter words, we moved on to simple three-letter consonant vowel consonant (CVC) words. Even though it's only one extra letter, it feels much harder. 

When they were trying to sound out the CVC words, I would notice that they’d sometimes forget one of the sounds. Maybe they'd drop the first sound or the last. Maybe they'd mix up the order of the sounds.

They were trying something that took more concentration, and sometimes they got stuck or confused.

Whenever they were struggling, I'd ask myself:

"How can I make this just a little easier?"

If my daughter was struggling with the word ‘cat’, I’d cover the ‘c’ and have her read ‘at’. Once she could do that, I'd uncover the ‘c’ and help her blend the whole word. I’d have her say “/c/” then “/at/”, and we would try to do this more quickly so she would hear how “c-at” sounds a lot like “cat”, and connect the dots.

But sometimes even this isn’t enough help, so I would model blending the sound “c-at” and repeat it more quickly until she eventually got it, and knew what word I was saying.

This can feel like a lot of help. Sometimes, it even feels a bit like you’re cheating. You’re giving them the answer.

The key is that I only gave her as much help as she needed to succeed. She always tried first on her own. If she got stuck, I'd make the task a little easier. If that wasn't enough, I'd model sounding out the word myself. I'd sound it out very slowly and watch for the moment she recognized the word I was saying. If she still wasn't getting it, I'd speed up the blending. Even if she couldn't do it independently yet, I knew she was still learning by watching and listening. The next time we practiced, she almost always needed a little less help.

Little by little, she needed less of my help. I stepped back, and she did more on her own until she was reading the word by herself.