Can I Teach My 4 Years Old to Read?

Like many other parents, we read before bedtime, reading aloud during the day, and have tons of ABC flash cards and cubes. Of course, there are a lot of digital toys with ABC and sounds. Never with a thought to teach my kids to read early until I taught my 5 years old how to read to catch up with his classmates.

Because of a pandemic with virtual classrooms, I observed and saw how my 5 years old did compared to his peers. I noticed that he felt behind with reading and writing. Of course, it was not a problem because he was only 5 years old at that time. But I was curious.

I devoted 2 months in summer of 2020 teaching him reading. My goal is to improve his reading skill so he could catch up in the coming school year. He was able to read chapter books during his grade 1 in the 2020-2021 school year.  

I wondered if I could do the same thing with my daughter who was 3 at the time because I saw the signs that she was ready and curious to do like her brother. She showed me that she wanted to study. She wanted to do homework just like him. She also asked to do ABC tracing when she was 3 years old.

After a full year of working with her, my 4 years old daughter is reading, writing and doing math. This morning, she was able to read Pre-K math exercises on her own.

Before I go deeper and share our journey with you. Please understand that, there is no rush into teaching your kids to read and do math at the age of 4 if they are not ready.

During this journey with one main goal of teaching her to read, I have learnt more important lessons than reading lessons.

Before teaching her to read, I asked so many questions and found that many other parents were asking the same questions as I did. From the experience with my daughter, I hope I can help you clear up a couple common questions before starting the journey.  

At what age should a child be able to read?

Apparently, a child can read at the age of four like my daughter.  

How long does it take to teach 4 years old to read?

There are programs and moms claim that kids can learn how to read in 30 hours.

When I started homeschooling and did my research, the book named Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann was recommended by many other homeschool moms. They claim that it takes between 15’ to 30 minutes per day to teach your child daily. It means between 25 hours to 50 hours.

It may be true. But it may be not because it depends on each child. With my daughter, I practice every day for at least 15 minutes because she has to finish 2 pages daily. It can take her 10 minutes one day and takes 30 minutes another day.

Therefore, I can’t promise you that it takes only 30 hours to teach your child to read.

But I can promise you one thing: 6 months. After 6 months of consistently practicing, your child will read for sure.

How do I do it?

At first, I worked with her on ABC flashcards, ABC charts and ABC tracing workbooks. I worked on these with her for months until she was comfortable and recognized the alphabet.

Then I moved to using a reading teaching textbook. I set a clear goal for her and me. I communicated my goal to her and showed her that her brother had done the same thing.

• Everyday, we will start at the same time like after breakfast or after snack time.
• We have to finish 2 pages (takes around 15 minutes at least for easy lessons)
• We repeat 3 times each page
• Can’t leave until 2 pages are finished. We have to finish what we start.
• Bonus: I take them to the library at least twice per month and let them borrow any books they want to read at their levels. This makes her excited and grows her love for reading.

In addition to all of the above rules, I make sure that our books are shorted out by levels and types. I label our bookshelf for them to see where their books belong. All books that I want them to read, I put them in the lowest shelves that my 4 years can have access to easily.

When I am busy with her brother, I ask her to go for independent reading. She loves her independent reading time because it makes her feel proud and responsible.

Every day is different and not smooth as always. I wish! A good mood day, she does it super-fast that only takes her 10 minutes to do it. But when we practice on a new lesson, she doesn’t know how to pronounce the words, it takes her longer.

And because of consistency, I stick to my rules. And I mean it. I keep repeating my message for months, and finally she gets it because she can see her results through her practice.

Now, her lessons are getting harder. I add in “let do it again because this lesson is a little bit difficult for you.” “Let’s do it again until you make fewer mistakes and read smoother.” Sometimes, she is happy to read it more than 5 times because she likes to improve her reading. 

What curriculum should I use to teach 4 years old to read?

I don’t use any specific curriculum but only one book.

I tried a couple of books but have to go back to the old one I have, and I love it because it works for both my son and my daughter.

The book’s called The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons by Michael Levin MD and Charan Langton MS.

What I like about this book is that no color means no distraction. There are pictures for kids to relate to the words or letters they are learning. But not a lot of pictures that can be distractions during lessons.

This worked perfectly for my ADHD boy. He has a hard time focusing on things. His mind is running fast with thoughts and ideas. Therefore, this reading lesson book worked well for him. It keeps him focused.

And it works well for my daughter too. My daughter knows how to sound out words to read.

This book is based on repetition. Each lesson has 21 pages. Your child will have a lot of time practicing using letters and sounds over and over. Each lesson builds upon the previous ones.

I see this book as a teacher. I am only there to guide her through the book and pronunciation. I don’t have to prepare any extra work which I love. 

This post may contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Additional books for practicing

In addition to this book, I also use other books for practicing and testing her skill. The list below are books that my daughter loves. Some of them I bought and most of them I borrowed from the library.

Most of them are series books. I will share two books from each series for you to check out. You can find them on Amazon. If you want to see more, you can check out my kit for Preschool or here.

I like them all. But if I want to teach her during our reading aloud time, I will use A Beginning-to-Read Book by Marganet Hillert. Basic words with a lot of repetition are wonderful for reading practice. In addition, at the end of the book, there are Reading Reinforcement and Word List. Those are helpful for teaching purposes. 

First Little Readers: Reading Level A – 25 Irresistible Books for beginning readers

Bob Books – Set 1 – Beginning Readers – 12 books

Hoonew Letters and numbers magnets with both sided flash cards and 123 Uppercase and Lowercase magnets for learning and spelling

Phonics Flash Cards – PreK to Grade 1 – with 54 cards

Hilarious Adventure and helpful Ninja

Moby Shinobi: Ninja at the Firehouse Level 1

Hilarious Adventure and helpful Ninja

Moby Shinobi: Ninja at the Kitchen Level 1

I Can Read: My First Reading

Otter: The Best Job Ever!

I Can Read: My First Reading

Otter: What Pet is Best?

A Beginning-to-Read Book

The Baby Bunny

A Beginning-to-Read Book

Up, UP, and Away

An Elephant and Piggie Book by Mo Willems

Let’s Go for a Drive!

An Elephant and Piggie Book by Mo Willems

Can I Play Too?

It is more than reading lessons

It has been a journey, and we still have one third of the book to go. I was proud that my four years old daughter could read. However, the most significant thing here is the lessons I have been learning through teaching my daughter.

be consistent and finish your commitment!

What I want to teach her more than reading lessons is “Follow through!” At this age, any new reading is difficult and intimating. What they would do is whine and cry just because they want to give up.

I didn’t know at first. But I have seen the patterns. It hits me that she wasn’t lazy, but she just didn’t know and didn’t want to do the hard ones.

The only thing I can do is stick with my rules and be patient with her to guide her through those new words’ sounds. It was new to her, and she doesn’t know how to pronounce it, doesn’t mean that she should give up and stop.

The 3-times tricks do the job most of the time!

It is better on the other side if she tries her best to stick with the hard part. After 3 tries, she can’t stop if she doesn’t want to go further.

What she learns after each 3-times is the words become easier and easier for her.

Here is my 4c for teaching your child how to read:

Come up with rules that work for you and your child!

Communicate with your child those rules everyday!

Commit to it no matter what!

Consistency is the key!

See short video clips

You can check out her reading as example from my daily routine video. It is at 1:20.