Homeschooling parents, how did you teach your child to read?

I'm mildly dyslexic. I was taught to read using phonics. It was great. I highly recommend it. Also, teach reading comprehension. I wish I had that before 9th grade when I was able to take a course. Also go over how your brain learns - the importance of making connections and repetition - committing to memory, etc. Best of luck to you. Stay connected with your child and it should be great.

One of the things I did with my home schooled daughter was to get a set of blank recipe cards and a box to put them in - then I started to write simple words on them - I, we, you, go, in, of, up, to, see and when my daughter saw what I was doing and asked, I told her that I was writing words - one word on each card. She asked me to write some for her - which I did. By the end of the morning we had about thirty simple words, all of which she could say - the beauty of this method is that there no words on the cards that my daughter couldn't spell and she came to me every day for me to write more words for her. The game is to put the words in sequence to make funny sentences - "Dad is in the tree" or "I can see the dog in the hat" - kids think this is hilarious. When we teach children to read they are often faced with words they don't know, so this way, the child knows every word in their box and will come and ask for more words when they want them.

I used Hooked on Phonics. I was able to find unused copies on ebay for 15 to 25 dollars. We have completed both the Kindergarten and First Grade Editions. I also know other parents who used the program Sing, Spell, Read, and Write who had similar results. My child is ADHD with a language and speech problem so flash cards would not have worked for our family.