Skills Children Need to Be Readers By Third Grade

Phonics
By Christianne Meneses Jacobs

Reading is a code of sounds. The transition that children make from spoken words to written words occurs when they can see the words on the page and can identify the sounds. Children start learning that letters represent sounds when they are four years old. At that age, they begin to pay attention to letters and words when a teacher is reading a favorite story or when mom and dad are reading a bedtime story.

Sometime children come across words that they don’t know but they can use their knowledge of letters and sounds to figure out an unknown word. Teachers spend a lot of time in first and second grade teaching children the rules of letter/sound correspondence. Children will learn all the sounds that the 26 letters of the English alphabet make along with their rules, variations and exceptions.

But parents can help their children before they enter school by pointing out that words are everywhere. Parents can help children look for words in signs, billboards, cereal boxes, maps, cards and restaurants. Point out those words to your child and sound them out loud to show your child that combinations of letters make sounds. These exercises will make it easier for your children when they enter school.