I thought the idea Laurie Block Spiegel had for creating a child 's first book was a nice idea. Here is the link, but scroll to the very bottom. If you click on the 2 homemade book titles, there are pictures of each page. I bet my little guy would love a book about him, especially one where I am playing a find Kanoa type of game.
http://www.homeschoolnyc.com/resources/reading-primer.html
There would be no coaxing my child to read or pronounce words. We would be reading for the pure pleasure of it as long as he wants to and is interested. We may play a find the letter game as he sometimes likes to find a certain letter like a D for Daddy or a K for Kanoa. I believe that the ability to read will happen when my child is developmentally ready as words and books and all sorts of things that provide information we wish to know surround us and most of our family often models reading. I also believe that when a person is developmentally ready is different for each individual - and if we have expectations we are holding on to, we can practice being patient and accepting where our child is at and how they learn. Many kids don't read until later, and in a short time you can't tell the difference between "early" and "late" readers. And if we force a child to do things before they are ready, they will become frustrated and might learn to hate whatever is being forced upon them. Better to let them learn with ease, when they are developmentally ready, when whatever they wish to know has meaning to them. This helps them learn that they can do and find out about what they are interested in and keeps their passion for learning in general alive. This doesn't mean don't do anything to help your child learn and find interesting things though. Do make the effort to find things that your child shows interest in or even introduce things to your child that you think they may be interested in. Don't have an agenda, but do offer, introduce and explore together and help when needed. Be a partner and a friend. Not only is that a great way to help children happily learn, but it is enjoyable and can even strengthen your relationship.
Here's a link to Peter Gray's blog about children teaching themselves to read.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201002/children-teach-themselves-read
And somewhere in this blog I think I wrote about how Katie learned to read around age 3. Li learned slowly over time and I'd say he was reading well around 9 yrs old. Makana (6) is still learning, although she can read some words. Kanoa, 3, likes letters.
