I love reading and I prefer books to any movie any day.  I am one of those people that think the book is usually better than the movie.  As parents we get the amazing privilege of developing a love of reading in our children.  The easiest way to get your kids to love reading is to read to them when they are young and keep reading to them even after they learn to read.  My teens still enjoy our read aloud time and we go on many different adventures through books.

I have a few favorite curriculum choices on teaching kids how to read.  The first reading curriculum that I like is “How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons”.  I like this curriculum because it is easy to use.  It writes out a script for the parents for each lesson and it works.  At the end of 100 lessons or even before you are done, your child is reading.  This curriculum is contained in one book and all you have to do is buy the one book and nothing else.  There are not any bells or whistles in this curriculum, so if you have a kinesthetic learner, this may not be the choice for you.  Each child has a certain learning style that fits them the best.  The most challenging thing for me is when it doesn’t match my own learning style and I have to step out of my comfort zone.  I have one child who did amazing on “Teaching Your Child to Read…” and another child who was miserable with it because it didn’t have hands-on activities.  He was a more kinesthetic and visual learner.

If you child is more hands-on and like games and other activities to motivate them to learn to read, then I would recommend the “Primary Arts of Language:  Reading and Writing” by Jill Pike.  You can find this curriculum on the website of Institute of Excellence for Writing.  It has games and other activities to reinforce reading.  I really like how it combines whole language with phonics to teach reading.  I also like the “Phonics Museum” by Veritas Press.  This is a fun curriculum because it uses “real” books to teach the kids how to read.  For example, the first reader is a story about St. Patrick and his life as a missionary.  The language is simple for them to read but connected to someone in history.  On the back of each book is the moment of history that the book is about.  These both are more expensive options then the first one, but definitely more hands-on.  You can find “Primary Art of Language” at iew.com and you can find “Phonics Museum” at veritaspress.com.

Hopefully, this gives you a little bit of a starting point for teaching your child how to read.  Delight in the journey.