How to Teach Your 4 Year Old to Read!

I just got back from one of the most exciting home visits I have done this is a child mom is taking my course I showed up to see how it's going we were going to do some letter sounds and he just was not feeling it okay you're gonna see what we got to you're gonna see what it looks like at the end before anything you see here he was screaming he was yelling he was crying he did not want to do it and I know a lot of you you're working with your kid you're like

my kid hates doing this they refuse they don't want to do it I promise you there's stuff that you can do that's gonna help your kid enjoy this time and I'm gonna show you what you're gonna see before it was night I'm gonna show you day we're gonna see how to get a child enjoying their learning time and engaged I'll break this down step by step and I'm going to show you all of the little things that I do to keep a child interested in that you might not be able to pick up on your

own but that you'll definitely be able to do when you work with your little one so I've got the video pulled up here I'm going to show you guys a couple of these clips and we're gonna break down exactly what I'm doing to help help him Focus all right Derek here's what we're gonna do me and you are going to do a couple of sounds and then we're gonna go play with your parents okay I'm gonna go play water yeah right good job you did it Derek you did it come here look what I mean

take a seat watch this so right away here's what I'm doing I noticed we had some trouble we don't want to do the learning I asked Mom and Dad to step out for a moment so I could have some one-on-one time with them right so he can focus on me and immediately I'm establishing physical contact touching touching his hands giving high fives holding his hands doing something to form the connection this is really really important then my tone my energy it's positive it's happy it's excited to see him I'm low I'm on his level that's

on purpose I'm not standing up and towering above him I'm down on the ground ready to go I even set something up to distract him so he wouldn't be focused on oh I've got to do sounds now I wanted him distracted and saying oh I can play with the markers so the second he comes I'm getting close I'm sitting down next to him I'm going face to face I'm smiling I'm with him I'm touching and already he's understanding okay this is what we're gonna do I'm gonna sit down he's with me he's my teacher right

now I'm gonna Focus all of this happens before we ever open our mouth it's our body it's our position it's our demeanor and it's our energy and my energy here is we're gonna do this but I'm here with you okay that's the first thing I want him to pick up ready wanna try it you did it good job do this good now here's what's gonna happen okay I picked some sounds you like don't want you to tell me to sound like good high five what sound is that [Music] good job now as we start to

practice these sounds here's something really important to understand there is a difference between giving a direction and asking a question are things that it doesn't matter what the kit answers do you want to use this marker or do you want to use this marker we ask questions when it doesn't matter and our kid can answer either way directions are things that we want the child to do we say here's the work you're going to do here's we're going to do in this case with Derek I am very very careful he just refused the sounds he

said no he said no so I'm not going to ask him do you want to do this house because that gives him the chance to say no I'm gonna say okay we're gonna do the sounds what sound is this I'm telling him that is a clear Direction but when you give kids Clear Directions they respond when you give them questions they shut down right questions about stuff that doesn't matter directions about stuff that does what sound is that what sound is that what size is that what is that good job what sign is that oh

there's two of them that's silly look at that they both say the same thing don't they what did they both say good job we have three new sounds today Derek and you know what you did all those so well do you want to try knocking these over again okay do you want to set them up or do you want me to set them up you have to use your words do you want to set them up or do you want me to set them up more orange so say me say me me so I want

to set them up [Music] it's a green girl Brown [Music] and another green okay so before you knock them down okay you're knocking these down because you did all the sounds right away okay did you say no no did you run away no you did it right away you did a good job you ready okay so here's another really important Point here I'm watching him and I saw what just happened before the camera cut on and I know he didn't want to do it but I want to reward and draw the connection with what he's

doing correctly so what we stopped doing was we stopped running away we stopped saying no I'm gonna name that for him so he knows that I see it what we started doing was we started doing our best to do the sound I'm gonna name that for him so he sees it I want to make the connection anytime I can between okay here's why we're taking a break here's why we're having fun it's because you did this and because you didn't do this right I know he's focused now when I name exactly what I'm looking for

it lets him know okay not only is Spencer watching and seeing but this is what I should continue to do moving forward so I'm making that strong connection here as we're kind of taking this break playing with the markers before we jump back into some more sounds foreign really good okay here's what you do next I brought out three special sounds and I'm gonna give you an option do you want to hit the sounds or do you want to jump on the sounds hit the sounds okay so wait wait wait first I'm gonna tell you

the sound to hit okay I want you to hit the sound that says eh hey good job now hit Z good now hit X good f uh [Music] good now watch this I want you to see if you can find [Music] good job how about hit it how about e good let's move it up a little bit they're different now okay you ready now we're gonna do it fast really fast like this you ready something I want you to notice as I'm working with him is I'm keeping the pace up I'm not having a lot

of random conversations about what else is going on right now this is practice time so I'm keeping the pace up I'm trying to move at a pretty quick clip so he's less thinking about oh I'm doing my sounds and more I think on okay what's the next thing I need to do I'm giving super clear directions for everything hit this hit this hit this I'm not asking do you want to hit this do you want to do that I'm only ask questions when it's literally his choice I want him to work so what I'm doing

okay hit this hit this hit this I'm keeping him focused I'm keeping him on track and I'm keeping the tempo and the momentum up I know a lot of you you're gonna look at this you're gonna see oh he's doing it because he's having fun the activity before this was fun too part of why he's doing this is because I'm close to him I have a calm energy I'm positive and part of it is because I'm giving really clear directions so he knows exactly what to do and he knows I expect him to do it

that's really really important here ready ah put it right back how do I hit it which one's a which one's which one is this good no you tell me the sound what sound is this good okay so this is a teaching Point here but I'm moving him from easiest to hardest so at first I'm simply having him identify them in order it's always this one then this one then this one then I shuffle the order it's a little bit different it's still kind of easy because he's identifying them once he's at the point where he's

correctly identifying them I'm then having him say them that's much harder it's like watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire when you have multiple choice that's going to be easier than an open-ended question so now I'm literally giving him no hints what sound is this so in addition to all the behavioral moves getting close and that sort of thing I'm actually increasing the rigor how hard the questions are as he goes to make sure that he's truly mastered the sounds this right here is going to be what tells me does he know the sound or

does he not quite know yet okay that's for you you get to keep it do you want to look at the animal or do you want to put it next to you okay bam question do you want to keep it or do you want to look at the animal right I'm giving him two choices what he chooses does not matter I don't care if he keeps the card next to him I don't care if he flips it and looks at the animal doesn't matter he gets to choose I ask questions only when the answer doesn't

matter otherwise I either make a statement like oh you got 10 sounds or I give a Direction touch the sound that says questions statements directions and if your little one is not following your directions there's a good chance they're not actually directions they're probably questions they're probably statements we give Clear Directions you know wait for a child to follow them when it doesn't matter we ask those questions to them what sound is this great that's for you too really good job so you did all these sounds you did one two three four five six seven

eight nine ten sounds all by herself that's really good let's say every sound one more time I want to mix up the new ones with the old ones we learned to see how you do them and then after this how about we go outside and we start playing with your family okay all right let's finish it every time one more time good that's for you this one what side is that good that's for me what sound is this good for you this time good this one this one this one good this one this one got

this one and ah will be the two that we work on I have a question for you though okay I'm gonna give you two options let me listen carefully here's your two options option number one we can go outside with your family right now okay option number two we can get the guns and we can put those letters back up and me and you can shoot them together which one do you think you want to do shoot them together yeah okay do you want to help me get it set up yeah come here I need

your help come on you wanna try it good job there it is I'm gonna slide this one a little bit down here what sound is that so here's the deal I've worked with Mom before since she bought the course we've been in communication I went over to the house last week and the lesson went off without a hitch and watching mom is like watching a master teacher she's so so good with the boys and she's doing it not just with him with brother and with the two little ones around managing four kids and still doing

the lesson okay it's a thing of beauty every now and then kids have an off day it happens for teachers and classrooms it happens with employees and jobs sometimes we just have an off day and the little man was having an off day when we showed up okay that doesn't mean we need to be this intentional every single time but certainly there are times when our kids don't want to do it whether it's reading or math or creative play or painting there's just times when kids don't want to do something and it requires a little

bit more from us so you might have a child who is always defying your directions all the time you say up they say down that's just how it is or you might have a child where it's only sometimes only in these situations or only with this parent and if that happens to you you've got to be really intentional about your body language your voice your eye contact your touch your questions your statements your directions all of that stuff matters when your kid is struggling so we're having a bad day and we turn it around not

by saying what is the most fun thing not by saying how do we turn this into a game we turned it around with clear expectations with an intentional plan for how he positioned herself and by constantly encouraging him to do more and to do better so I hope this is helpful for you I know that it's tough I've been there as a teacher but I promise you you take some tips and pointers from this video you're going to see your little one's Behavior turn around in no time and as a reminder I do sell online

courses for families to help them teach their kids how to read those families are going to get the full uncut versions of all these videos with even more of my commentary so they can watch and learn from those videos and those resources so if that's something you're interested in definitely check out the link in the description to get signed up for my courses I'd love to see you hope this is helpful until next time I'll talk to you soon