Teaching children to read their first English words

Speak first, read later

• The Department for Education's reading framework for England puts talk and stories at the foundation, alongside phonics, from reception.
• A native speaker who blends c-a-t immediately recognises a word they already say. A child who has never heard "cat" may sound it out without understanding anything.
• So before teaching a child to read a word, make sure they have heard it, understand it and can say it. The topic pages and Word Island build that vocabulary.

A suggested sequence

• Step 1, letters: recognise letter shapes and know their names. See the alphabet.
• Step 2, first sounds: notice that "cat" starts with c and "dog" starts with d.
• Step 3, familiar three-letter words: cat, dog, pig, sun, bus, bed. Hear each sound, then blend.
• Step 4, short sentences with pictures: "I see a cat." The picture helps your child guess and check.
• Step 5, read aloud together: point to each word as you read picture books, and your child will start to spot familiar words.

First words, tap to hear

Short words, read the way they are written, from familiar topics.

• catc-a-t
• dogd-o-g
• pigp-i-g
• suns-u-n
• busb-u-s
• bedb-e-d
• I see a cat.The first sentence in I Can Read.

If your child is learning to read another language too

• Letters can look the same but sound different across languages. The a in "cat" may not match the a your child is learning at school.
• Many children keep the two apart well. If your child seems confused or pressured, put the school language first and keep English to listening, speaking and play for a while.
• There is no deadline: reading English at 5 or at 7 is fine, as long as your child still enjoys English.

Games that help

• Letter Island: the names of all 26 letters, finding the first letter of a word, and finding pictures that start with a letter.
• Read It! (free): read and say 29 short words grouped by sound (a, i, o, u, sh). It uses the microphone through the browser's speech recognition; the microphone is optional.
• I Can Read: 135 short sentences, each with a picture; a pattern screen keeps the sentence and changes one word.
• See also what phonics is, and whether preschoolers should learn it.

Sources

1. Department for Education (England): The reading framework (updated 2023)