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You do not need to be a teacher to help your child learn to read. Decades of research point to the same few building blocks, learned in roughly the same order. Here is what they are, how to practice each one at home in a few minutes a day, and how to keep reading something your child wants to do.
The short version: read aloud every day, teach letter sounds (not letter names first), practice blending sounds into words, and let your child read easy books to you. Keep sessions short and happy. Five minutes a day beats an hour on Saturday.
Researchers describe skilled reading as two things working together: decoding (turning letters into the sounds of words) and language comprehension (understanding what those words mean). A child needs both. A child who can sound out every word but has a small vocabulary will struggle to understand, and a child with a rich vocabulary who cannot decode cannot get at the words on the page. The good news is that you can build both at home.
Everything starts with spoken language. Talk with your child, name things, sing songs and, above all, read aloud. Books contain words that rarely come up in everyday chat, so reading aloud is one of the best ways to grow the vocabulary your child will later need to understand what they read. Our guide to reading aloud at every age explains what this looks like as children grow.
Before letters, children need to notice that words are made of smaller sounds. This is called phonological awareness. You can build it with games that need no paper at all:
Schools in the UK and US teach reading through phonics: the links between letters and the sounds they make. The National Reading Panel in the US found that systematic phonics teaching helps children learn to read more than approaches that leave it to chance, and the UK government's reading framework builds early reading on it too.
At home, focus on the sound each letter makes ("sss" for s, "mmm" for m) rather than its name ("ess", "em"). Start with a handful of common sounds, such as s, a, t, p, i and n, which can already make dozens of words: sat, tap, pin, pan, nap. Ask your child's teacher which order their school uses so you can match it.
Blending means saying the sounds in order and pushing them together to hear the word: "s-a-t... sat!" It is the moment reading clicks, and it usually takes lots of short practice.
As children decode the same words again and again, they start recognizing them instantly. Researchers call this orthographic mapping: the spelling becomes linked to the word's sound and meaning in memory. That is how "sight words" are really learned, not by memorizing word shapes.
Let your child read books to you that match the sounds they know (schools often send these home), and keep reading richer books to them as well. When they get stuck, prompt them to sound it out rather than guess from the picture. Praise effort, not just accuracy: "You sounded out every letter in that tricky word."
Re-reading is good. The National Reading Panel found that guided, repeated oral reading builds fluency, so reading a favorite book several times is not wasted time.
Books that highlight each word as it is read let children see and hear the word at the same moment, which supports the link between print and sound. They are a useful extra, especially when you are busy or a sibling wants a turn, but they work best alongside you, not instead of you. Our guide to read-along books and learning to read looks at the research.
Looking for books at the right level? Try our books for toddlers, books for ages 3 to 6 and early reader books for ages 6 to 9.
This guide is general information for parents and carers. If you are worried about your child's development, speech or reading, talk to their teacher or doctor.
Browse the full library by age, or search the store by genre. Many books are free to read with no account.