!Teaching my four-year-old to read --- agk's diary 15 January 2026 @ 04:32 UTC --- written on GPD MicroPC at night --- She loves stories. We're voracious readers. Thanks to her I've read aloud The Wizard of Oz, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Betsy-Tacy, Tomie DiPaola's chapter books about his childhood, several chapter books I'd read as a child, many German, Russian, and black American folktales, and now we're reading Little House in the Big Woods. I had to stop reading books at bedtime because she'd stay up whispering and thinking. She reads to me or I read to her at the kitchen table. In her room, a few poems or nothing now. And she loves ballads that tell stories. She lustily sings Folsom Prison Blues, Let It Go (from Frozen), and Christmas hymns. She makes up her own. She's at home with words. I wanted her to learn to read before she starts kindergarten (at 5 years old), because our schools teach reading so poorly they set kids up for life- long low literacy. A friend's kid who is 12 grew up with as many books as mine, and was a late and persistently unmotivated reader, simply because of how she was taught. A friend's kid in second grade is very bright and loves to read but routinely makes up words when reading aloud that bear no resemblance to the word on the page. A shocking number of bright adults I know under 35 have great difficulty reading. They need anything long or complex read aloud. They were taught to guess from context, from a pic- ture, from a first letter, so called "cueing," which is unrelated to the science of reading, but has a strong lobby in my country. I love reading and don't want to deny daughter its lifelong utility and pleasure, so she's learning to read from me by the trusty phonics method. There are packaged phonics curricula and resources for schoolteachers that cost hundreds or thousands of bucks for the curricula and materials. There are testimonials in subscription-only substacks. There are mass-market books on the science of reading that I gave up on after 60+ pages of low-information- density writing that provided me with a single insight and no practical assistance. There is a book in which the drills drain the joy from life. To aid friends (and the few parents of preschoolers who read me on gopher) I'll write down what's worked for us so far. Because we're doing good. What she can do Today after a week of almost-daily reading and writing practice, she read and wrote with enjoyment, Tom's nag is fat; his dog is not fat. Nat's dog, Rab, can not catch the rat. A lad sees the frog on the log. The lad ran at it. The man has a lamp. I have so many strips of paper with variations of "A fat dog ran" written on them from a few days ago when she was troubleshooting her lowercase fs, ds, and gs. We usually write on a slate with chalk. Tomorrow in a break in our long drive, she'll learn eight new words, nest this eggs she in get box hen and three new phonic sounds, e x sh We can do daily practice because it is fun, playful, and nurtures our relationship. Before we found this groove, we'd grit our teeth and practice once a week. I learned from what we were doing then, and draw on it for what we do now. What we needed We found that we need something to read with a limit- ed vocabulary that increases in a structured way as we progress, and holds interest; that is, something to read. We need letters, digraphs, and sight words to manip- ulate while playfully experimenting, producing and reproducing sentences, modifying sentences and words, finding rhymes, and using color as a memory aid; that is, something to manipulate. We need a slate and chalk, pen and paper, or a work- book to practice writing drills, reproducing letters, words, and sentences we've written or constructed. We also need a standard print letterform for each letter (especially letters with variable forms like lowercase a). That is, some way and something to write. That's it. How we found something to read Our library has structured readers, but they gener- ally start too difficult for her to begin learning to read (like Hop on Pop, or Fox in Socks). They have Bob books structured readers, but they're often checked out, and don't provide enough reading mater- ial (though I can't recommend the pre-reading Bob books enough). The structured readers you can buy have only a few new words per book, are excruciating- ly boring, will each only be read once or twice, and are collectively too expensive for me. But... in a cutesy "Americana" and crafts store they had reprints of 19th century primers and readers. I picked up McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, opened to the first lesson in the shop, and she sounded out the words, A cat and a rat. and was so pleased that for 10 bucks we had some- thing to read that was the equivalent of sixty structured readers ($150-$200). It's perfect. When we finish, it is followed by two readers. The first reader finishes with short stories as complex as the books I currently read aloud to her. Even the very simple stories with limited vocabulary we currently read have dramatic tension and engaging characters. It's not just something to read, she enjoys reading it. Before finding McGuffey's, I was trying to use the version of the '60s Distar phonics curriculum in the '80s workbook Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. It came highly recommended, the public library had a copy, and we made it through almost 10 lessons. It teaches a way to sound out words (which we mod- ified based on another approach), a way to write letterforms (which we follow religiously), and a way to drill new words and rhyming words (which we gen- erally continue to follow). It pairs writing with reading from lesson one. She continues to write every time she reads. Manipulables and writing We use Junior Learning Rainbow Phonics magnetic letters. They are foam, which I was afraid she'd chew on or tear up but it turns out she's old enough to restrain those impulses she obviously still has. The box has a ferrous lid you can compose on. For ~$20, it contains two sets of blue consonants and red vowels, as well as yellow digraphs, sh ck ff ss th ph ll ch qu wh ng green vowel digraphs, ai oa igh ee oi ew aw ay ue oy au oe purple r-controlled vowels, ar air ur ear or er violet changeable vowel sounds, oo ie ea ou ow and orange split vowel digraphs, a...e i...e u...e e...e o...e where the ending e modifies the earlier vowel. So far, using McGuffey's, we've used most of the consonants, three of the vowels, th, ch, and ee. When we didn't have enough letters to recreate sentences from McGuffey's, first I made more by painting letterforms on refrigerator magnets and cut- ting them out, then I spent three bucks (on sale) for two more alphabets and one more set of consonant digraphs, and seven more bucks for their 30 magnetic "My First Sight Words." The letters and sight words also offer a reward. When she learns a new letter or digraph, and uses it correctly, I take it from its ziploc bag and she "wins" it for her box. She's so proud of her ch! Same when she can read one of the sight words with- out sounding it out. So far she won it is his he can and the on a at and is proud of each word. To write we use a slate and chalk from the Hobby Lobby for less than ten bucks. If you carry your slate around in a backpack it will break. This is for at home only. I got Shell Education's "180 Days of Printing: Beginning" from the Dollar Tree or somewhere, and even though its lowercase a letterforms differ from ours, it's great for periodically getting her sorted on a new letter that's really confusing her. It's straightforward and she can complete a page unsuper- vised (when she started, months ago, she wanted constant validation and direction). She likes to write with a red Pilot G2 gel pen or a black Lamy ABC fountain pen. I feel like writing really consolidates her learning, and makes her prouder than reading. Sounding out words We broke with the Distar phonics way of sounding out words. It calls for smoothly blending each sound into the next when slowly sounding out, then saying it fast. When a letter sound confused my kid, she would voice letter sounds in a jagged way where consonants took on whispered phantom vowels that weren't there. t became teh c became cuh r became ruh Consonants need vowels, and the vowel sound often depends on whatever follows it, so can't always be predicted. Caleb Gattegno, whose silent method I would probably use fanatically if it was popular enough to have cheap readers and manipulables readily available, breaks words into syllabic chunks which both inherit the vowel, and are merged after the correct vowel sound is determined from the ending or word recogni- tion. ra at merges to rat po op merges to pop ca an merges to can If you are struggling with a consonant sound, always append your first guess at the following vowel sound, and correct it when merging. This is much easier. Also in his book Reading With Words In Color (which I downloaded from Anna's Archive), there are a great number of other wonderful insights. So with a chop- stick pointer I tap the rhythm of a sentence when she's stuck on one word to avoid giving her some- thing to parrot, but return her attention to the sentence as a whole, something to be voiced with breath divided thus. Final notes Before she really took off I reassured her that once she can read I'll still read to her. Also right before she really took off she started playing a pre-reading and reading educational game in the DOS/ Commodore 64 FUZOMA floppy. We'd occasionally grinded without great pleasure on far too difficult books, the Distar curriculum, the 180 Days of Printing workbook, and Gattegno's "pop up" animated film from the '60s for months. Suddenly we had something that worked. Maybe she hit some hidden developmental point, maybe I learned enough to teach well, maybe the reassurance or the computer game was decisive. Whatever it was, now we read, experiment, and write daily. There are no tears and we enjoy ourselves. Seeing someone learn to read is entrancing, miraculous, horribly beautiful. I could not have anticipated the process would be so rewarding for me. These are my notes on how I'm teaching my four-year old to read.