How to Teach Your Child to Read- Part 2: The School-Age Years
The Five Pillars of Literacy and How to Teach Them at Home
This is another one of my “How to Homeschool” series posts that I’ll be sharing over the summer. Stay tuned for more of these if you’re a homeschooling family! This fall, I’d love to begin compiling a “Homeschooling Guidebook” that will contain thoughtful answers from homeschooling mamas with tips, experience, and resources. Here’s what I need! If you have a homeschooling blog or Substack and would like to collaborate with me in this Homeschooling Guidebook, please send me a message or leave a comment!
Last week, I wrote the first part of this post— How to Teach Your Child to Read- Part 1: The Preschool Years. As a previous special education and first grade teacher and now a homeschooling mama, the process of teaching young kids how to read is nearly cemented in my mind, and something I genuinely enjoy (despite the struggles that can arise, which I’ll cover how to navigate in another post!).
In this post, I’ll share about how to move beyond the preschool years of building a foundation of early literacy and onto the next phase of reading— teaching them how to read. Some may think it sounds like a task too big for anyone except a trained teacher, but I want to encourage you that anyone can teach a child how to read well, regardless of your own credentials or experience— it’s a fairly simple process that takes persistence, patience, and practice.
This is a detailed post that explains the 5 Pillars of Literacy, many of my favorite resources, games, and ideas to go with each step of reading, and my favorite phonics curriculum that we’ve used for years. Bookmark it as a guide you can come back to when planning your own reading instruction, and as always, feel free to reach out with any questions or share what’s worked well for you! I’d love to hear!
The Key to Teaching Your Child How to Read
After teaching in both public school and now my home, I’ve found that the key to helping a child become a strong reader comes down to one essential element: phonics-based instruction.
The English language is made up of about 70 “rules” of phonics that explain why and how we pronounce words and syllables. Unfortunately, as a 90’s kid in the public school system, I wasn’t taught using this system but instead learned to read using the whole language approach through memorization, recognizing words as whole units, and using context clues.
Although this method can instill a love for books, it leaves holes as kids are never taught why words are spelled the way they are since the rules of phonics aren’t stressed but rather taught to read by recognizing words by sight and memorization through repetition.
Today, decades of research now confidently support a systematic phonics instruction, especially for early or struggling readers. Honestly, even my own spelling and reading skills are stronger having learned these rules alongside my kids!
The 5 Pillars of Literacy
When using a phonics based method to teach kids how to read, it’s important to view it as a whole picture, one that incorporates more than just being able to sound out and read words— but also reading the words well, understanding what’s being read, and being challenged to grow in vocabulary skills…more formally known as the 5 Pillars of Literacy.
In this post, I’ll walk you through each of these five pillars of literacy, what each one means, and how you can teach it practically and confidently to your child at home.
1. Phonemic Awareness
The ability to hear and play with individual sounds in words
This part actually doesn’t involve any letter recognition yet—just listening and speaking. Phonemic awareness is like the foundation that everything will rest upon. It sets the stage for learning all the other rules of reading so it’s important to spend the early years focusing on these word play activities.
What it can look like at home:
Play oral games like:
“What’s the first sound in ‘tiger’?”
“What’s another word that has the same ending sound as in “man”?”
“Let’s tap out the sounds in ‘ship’—/sh/ /i/ /p/.” (use your fingers to tap out each sound part, “ship” has 3)
Whisper three sounds slowly and have your child guess the word: “/b/ /a/ /g/—what word is that?”
Play “Sound Detective” while driving: “I’m thinking of a word that starts with the same sound as ‘sun’ and means something you eat in the morning…”
Phonemic Awareness Task Cards- I bought these very affordable cards from A Teachable Teacher blog when my oldest child first began homeschooling and they’ve been extremely helpful in daily practice of phonemic awareness skills. I keep them on a binder ring in a handy spot to grab and spend a few minutes reviewing before doing the phonics lessons.
Why it’s important:
Children need to be able to hear and separate the sounds in spoken words before they can connect those sounds to letters during phonics instruction.
2. Phonics
Connecting sounds to letters and learning to decode words
This is the part most people think of when they hear “learning to read.” It’s the step-by-step process of teaching that the sound /b/ is written with the letter B, and that when you blend /b/ /a/ /t/, you get the word bat.
What it can look like at home:
Use a phonics-based curriculum to teach your child the “rules” of reading.
My absolute favorite is All About Reading. I’ve taught my kids how to read using levels 1-4 and love the multi-sensory, open-and-go approach that it lays out. The hardcover readers are a great addition to our collection and ones my kids read over and over again. It’s pricy but worth the investment if you have multiple kids to teach!
Teach Your Child How to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a very popular phonics curriculum too. I own this as well but don’t love it nearly as much as All About Reading. It’s much more affordable and still delivers a great phonics based instruction, although not as colorful or interactive.
Explode the Code is another great option, especially for extra phonics practice. It’s not typically a stand-alone phonics curriculum but great to supplement another reading curriculum if it’s not as heavy in phonics instruction.
Keep lessons short—10 to 15 minutes a day is plenty. I use a sticky note and put it wherever we end when the timer is up. We pick up there the next day.
Make flashcards with letters and consonant teams like "sh," "ch," and "th" and practice reading simple words together. Nonsense words, like “shut” or “nud” are silly but great ways of applying the phonics principles even when reading words that are made up so feel free to incorporate some of those as well.
Have your child build words with magnetic letter tiles: I’ll say something like, “Can you make the word bug? Now change it to rug. Now run.” I installed this large whiteboard in our schoolroom years ago and we still used it every day. All About Reading comes with a complete set of tiles that make this practice activity fun and easy.
Practice writing words in sand, shaving cream, or sidewalk chalk to mix sensory and play into your practice.
Why it matters:
This is where the rules of the English language start to make sense and come together as children learn how to put letters and chunks together to make words. Having a strong phonics base gives your child the ability to sound out many unfamiliar words now that they’ve learned the rules.
3. Fluency
Reading smoothly, accurately, with expression
Once your child can decode, they need practice to become automatic with their reading. They’ll quickly move from sounding choppy like a robot (as they first learned how to sound words out) to reading smoothly and accurately, with expression in their voice. The key here is practice, practice, practice with books they can read well.
What it can look like at home:
Pick short, simple books your child can read with at least 95% accuracy. Let them read the same book several times until it sounds smooth. Ones we use and love are the Easy Reader books at the library (such as the I Can Read! or Step Into Reading books), BOB Books (we borrow them from our library), You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You series, a poem of the week, or any readers that come with your phonics curriculum.
Take turns reading: you read a page, they read the next (this is great for building reading stamina and modeling good expression).
Try “echo reading”: you read a sentence with great expression, and they repeat it back.
Record your child reading a passage and play it back for them. This makes progress more fun and tangible as they can hear what their reading voice sounds like!
Create independent reading times throughout your day: for us, this is 30 minutes during our morning school time and 60 minutes during our afternoon quiet time. This daily habit alone has considerably increased my kids fluency and motivated them to read more great books!
Why it matters:
Once a child can read fluently, they don’t have to work so hard at decoding the words and can move onto deeper comprehension and enjoyment of the story. This stage is when my own kids have shifted from reading because they have to, to reading because they truly enjoy it.
4. Vocabulary
Knowing and understanding the meaning of words
A rich vocabulary helps children understand what they read and also develop good written expression skills. Some of these words are taught directly but most are learned merely through independent and shared reading using context clues.
What it can look like at home:
Read a wide range of genres like fiction, nonfiction, poetry, fairy tales, readers theater, and even recipes or instructions.
Pause when reading aloud to explain new words in kid-friendly terms: “Do you know what generous means? It’s when someone shares what they have, like when you let your sister play with your toy.”
Use new words yourself in everyday conversation: “That’s a marvelous idea!” or “The view from the lake was picturesque.”
Incorporate word of the day flashcards: something new we’re including in our Language Arts instruction this year are “vocab words of the week”. I like this set, although my school-aged kids are only 9, 7, and 5 so I’ll likely pick and choose about 5 words per week, review and practice them each day, then quiz my older kids at the end of the week.
Why it matters:
The more words your child understands, the more deeply they can engage with what they’re reading and the more confident they’ll feel in conversation and writing.
5. Comprehension
Understanding and thinking about what is being read
If understanding what we’re reading (even as adults) is the goal, then comprehension skills for kids should be strengthened year by year, not bypassed after a child is finished reading a book. We want kids to not just read the words but understand the story, think about the characters and who they are, and draw connections that they can relate to their own lives or world around them.
What it can look like at home:
While you read together, ask thin and thick questions…
Thin questions ask about surface level details but still contribute towards a child’s understanding to the storyline or sequence of events, such as “Who are the characters so far?”, “What is the setting of the story?”, or “What happened after ______?”.
Thick questions go deeper and require more critical thinking skills, such as “Why do you think the character did that”, “What did it mean when that character said _______?”, or “What might have happened if the character didn’t do _______?”.
After reading, ask open-ended questions: “What would you have done differently?” or “Were there any parts that surprised you?”.
Have your child practice oral narration by retelling the story in their own words. One of my favorite little strategies is to make story retelling beads by stringing about 8-10 pony beads on a pipe cleaner. Each time they retell a details, they move a bead to the end of the pipe cleaner. This helps kids to see that retelling a story isn’t just telling one or two details.
Look for connections: Each time you read with your child, encourage them to find a connection (to themselves, to another book, or to the world). These connections create deeper pathways of remembering what was read and increases the likelihood of being stored in their long-term memory.
Why it matters:
Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, for kids and adults. It helps kids become thoughtful, empathetic, and curious learners who develop an appreciation for literature because it means something, not just because they can read words on a page.
Final Thoughts
Teaching my own kids how to read is one of the most meaningful and rewarding parts of our homeschool journey together, and if you homeschool your kids I hope it is for you too. It certainly doesn’t require perfection—it just takes patience, presence, consistent daily effort, and encouragement.
There will absolutely be days when it feels like you’re spinning your wheels and nothing is clicking (I’ve been there countless times!). But keep going, celebrate the small wins, and over the weeks and months you spend diligently teaching your child, you’ll begin to see fruit and confidence.
You’re not just teaching them a basic human skill, you’re giving them the gift of curiosity, adventure, and insight as they’ll soon be able to dive into books that take them to new worlds or awaken new ideas.
If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this lengthy and in-depth post, thank you for following along and investing time into your child’s education! As always, thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed this post and found it helpful, I’d be so grateful if you shared it with someone else who also could benefit from it!
How long did it typically take to establish fluency? I have a reluctant reader here, who knows all her phonics rules, but still resists practice because it is so unpleasant with her low fluency…
This is a wonderful post, Mollie! Any mom will find this helpful I’m sure. I’m a big fan of phonics too! 🙌 Reading is so key to learning!