I am a teacher and 4 is too young to teach either reading or writing, especially writing.

If you want her to be good at both, read to her EVERY day. The evidence showing the link between reading to a child and the child’s later reading skills is overwhelming.

You can introduce her to the alphabet but she will not fully understand that letters make sounds that are then strung together to make words. The reason she will not understand is that developmentally, she is not ready.

Having said that, make a book with her of 26 pages and put the letters of the alphabet at the top. After she learns the song, tell her that you will add pictures of things that stat with each letter. For example, find a picture of a CAT and glue that into the C page. Continue to fill the book over time.

But please don’t try to teach her to read and write yet. If she finds it hard, she will think that learning is not fun.

Some kids can read and write by the age of three. Serious Research so far shows, that they have absolute no advantage over other kids a couple years later. How best to stimulate a kids brain is still not conclusively researched. I have twins, who couldn’t talk at the age of 2, now at four, they don’t shut up. A neighbors kid knew all her colors, when she was 18 month old, so what, she could end up in a trailer park. A recent study, the biggest of its kind ever, followed kids for 15 years and found no conclusive evidence, that kids going to preschool from the same neighborhoods, have advantage over kids who didn’t later in live.

And with the book reading to kids, it doesn’t hurt, but its not the reading, its the bonding during the reading time, which is good for kids.

By the way, having kids listen to Beethoven is conclusively not doing anything for the kid.

I teach Kindergarten and believe that it is never to early. But at age four, children have short attention spans and they are more interested in playing. So the best way to teach them is through play. There is a fantastic reading program called Zoo Phonics that teaches reading and spelling. It is very effective and you will start to see results in a short period of time. Each letter has a corresponding animal and physical movement. The movement helps the child remember the letter’s shape and sound which will help his/her reading. If you work with your child every day, they should begin small VC and CVC words within 3 months.

As far as writing, I would begin with creating small flash cards and having the child use play dough to recreate the letter shape. As they are ready to move to markers, crayons, and pencils make the activity fun. Zoo Phonincs offers pre-writing and handwriting exercises that correspond to each letter.

The best way to help your child read, is to read to them at least 15 minutes everyday.

Hopes this helps. Good Luck.

While 4 year olds are not ready to read and write, you can certainly help them with their reading-readiness. While reading to them everyday is critical there are other things you can do. Help the child learn the alphabet and work on recognizing their letters. With my three year old daughter we started telling her the letters of her name. We have little letter magnets for the fridge and have her pick out the different letters. When we see signs we them out and ask her if she recognizes any letters. She has lots of fun and can recognize her name if she sees it written and can (sort of) write it herself (it is a little wavy and sometimes she reverses her R’s). After she got her name down, we started on other names she would know like “mom,” “dad,” or her brothers name.

The main thing is we don’t pressure her. We treat it like a game, and so it’s something she enjoys. We do not expect her to read the letters but we tell her she did a great job when she recognizes a letter.

Now when we pass stores or signs she’ll tell us, “Mommy there’s an ‘R’ over there,” or “I see ‘S’!” Sometimes she’ll even pull off something like “Look S-T-O-P! What Does that mean?”

Developmentally a 4 year old is not usually ready to learn to read and write. The best thing you can do with a child this age is to read books together and let them draw or try to model how to write letters. But don’t expect too much yet. There’s a reason kidnergartens want kids to be 5 to start.

Most fours have a lot to learn and some growing to do before they are ready for formal instruction in reading and writing. The most important thing you can do is to read to her, a lot. Teach her to love books. Sometimes, as you read, run your hand under the sentences from left to right. Don’t make a big deal of it. If a character’s name begins with the same letter as hers point it out. Read her predictable books like “The House that Jack Built” and encourage her to finish the sentences. Read her books with rhymes. When you find a book she loves read it over and over again. She’ll memorize it and be able to “read” it to you. When you are at the supermarket let her help you find familiar packages. Point out some of the words. Say “I want that one. It says natural.”Play rhyming games in the car or I Spy something that begins with mmmm. Kids need to learn that letters have sounds, words are made up of those letters and sentences are made up of words with spaces in between. They learn this by being read to and having famiiar words pointed out to them.

As far as writing goes, give her playdough, beads to string, and paper without lines and fat crayons. She needs to develop muscle strength and eye-hand coordination to write. Don’t expect reading and writing skills to necessarily develop at the same time. It’s possibleto force academics on 4’s but it’s usually a struggle and can turn the kid off to learning. If you wait until kindergarten or, even better, first grade, the whole experience is easier and more pleasant. And Yale doesn’t care how old you were when you learned to read.

Hi,I understand that you want to help your child get a head start on kindergarten, but don’t push too hard. He/she will have plenty of time for that when formal schooling begins. While she is still home with you just keep exposing her to print. Read to her, show her words and pictures. Draw with her and talk about what she sees in the pictures. Talk about the stories you read and have her retell the stories to you. If you want to work on letter recognition, I would make it as fun as possible. If it is not fun for the child, don’t do it. One idea to introduce the alphabet is to use play dough to form the letters. Also, you can use a pie tin and salt to let her/him use their finger and draw the letter in the salt. I would begin by teaching him/her the letters in their name. Use alphabet puzzles and flash cards to play games. At this age, if you just start getting them to recognize and name the letters of the alphabet you have given them a great start. At 4, they are really still very young and may not be developmentally ready to learn much more than that. Don’t push them and make them dislike learning. If it is too hard and not fun, they will learn to dislike the concept of learning. Read to them all the time and talk to them about everything. Build their vocabulary as much as you can. That is the best way to help them at this age.

Hi,
As parents, you’re the most important first step in your children’s journey into the wonderful world of reading. It is up to you to create the most supportive environment that turns your child on to reading – such as reading aloud to them often during the day and before bedtime, and placing age appropriate books for children around the house, so that the child will have access to plenty of books. Reading often to your child will help develop their interest in books and stories, and soon they will want to read stories on their own.

For a simple, step-by-step program that can help your child learn to read visit this site: http://readingprogram.toptips.org

label all the toys and objects in the room

Have lots of books available to look at

read to the child

set up play situations that require reading and writing

such as a resturant with menus and order pads.

and recipe cards that move from pictures to words.

Educators are stressing Phonemic awareness which goes a bit beyond the phonics we had as kids.

here is a good article on the subject

http://www.scholastic.com/schoolage/experts/learning/6_8_phonemicaware.htm

Activities

http://www.first-school.ws/theme/alphabet.htm

http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/consonants.htm

http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/Lesson_Plans/Language_Arts/___Preschool/Alphabet/index.shtml

Check out the book “Reading Magic” by Mem Fox

personally not a fan of phonics but here is a site that a lot of people like http://www.starfall.com