Teaching Kids to Read For Dummies

Part I: Preparing Your Child for the Road Ahead.

Chapter 1: The Wonder and Power of Reading.

Chapter 2: The Pre-Reader: Leading Up to Letters.

Chapter 3: Tigers and Teachers: Listening to Letters.

Chapter 4: m or n? b or d? Looking at Letters.

Chapter 5: Blending Letters Together.

Chapter 6: Four Special Sounds in Reading: ch, sh, ph, and th.

Part II: Building Words from Letters and Sounds.

Chapter 7: Getting Ready for Words and Sentences.

Chapter 8: Reading Short a Words.

Chapter 9: Reading Short e, i, and o Words.

Chapter 10: Reading Short u Words.

Part III: Advancing to Sight Words and Long Vowel Sounds.

Chapter 11: Understanding Sight Words.

Chapter 12: Making Big Progress with Little Rules.

Chapter 13: y: A Letter Like No Other.

Part IV: Scary Stuff Beginning with S:Soft Sounds, Suffixes, Syllables, and Silent Letters.

Chapter 14: Soft Sounds.

Chapter 15: Endings (a.k.a. Suffixes).

Chapter 16: Chunks of Sound, or Syllables.

Chapter 17: Time to Growl: ar, or, er, ir, and ur.

Chapter 18: Silent (But Not Deadly) Letters.

Chapter 19: Getting Beyond Sounds and Rules.

Part V: Reading, Reading, and More Reading.

Chapter 20: Choosing Just-Right Reading Books.

Chapter 21: Writing and Workbooks.

Chapter 22: Having Your Child Read Out Loud.

Chapter 23: Keeping Your Child on the Reading Track.

Chapter 24: When to Get Help for Your Child.

Part VI: The Part of Tens.

Chapter 25: More Than Ten Word Families.

Chapter 26: Ten Phonics Rules.

Chapter 27: Ten Things to Help Your Budding Reader.

Chapter 28: Ten Reading Teachers’ Resources.

Appendix: A Word Family Tree.

Index.