Article: To begin the process of reading the child will need a solid understanding of the alphabet. In addition to singing the alphabet, the child should develop an understanding of letter shapes and sounds.  Start with an alphabet book.  Make it fun by playing games. You can get some alphabet letters for the fridge, or cut out a bunch of letter shapes and decorate them with objects that begin with each letter. For example, cut out a letter S shapes and have him decorate it by gluing sunflower seeds or applying star stickers. Phonemic awareness is the process of associating letters or letter shapes with the corresponding sounds. Children will need to learn the 44 sounds made by the 26 letters of the alphabet. You can use a list of phonemes and help the child learn to correlate the sounds with the letters of the alphabet.  Teach the child how to pronounce each phoneme. Focus on one letter at a time and teach the child how to pronounce them correctly. Say the letter, then tell him the sound it makes. For example, "the letter A makes an ah sound. Then give him examples of words that start with that sound such as apple or ant. There are a lot of great apps that have fun games to help teach a child phonemic awareness, many of them such as ABC Genius and Build A Word Express are even free to download. Once the child can identify the first sound of one syllable words, teach him to add the ending. Use a picture to break up the letters and make each individual sound, then ask the child what the word is. This will help him to understand how each of the sounds created by letters will work together to form words. Have the child practice sounding out the words in the same way.  Put one syllable words together in a two or three word sentence. Have the child practice reading the sentence by sounding out each word. Try working with some of the pages in the Spot series by Eric Hill. They have many sentences of short, one syllable words. Once he has the hang of sounding out one syllable words, add another syllable. Keep challenging the child to sound out longer words. Sight words are any short, common words that a child will see often. Some examples of common sight words include plant, father, their and here.  Many of these words are difficult to sound out. The best way for a child to learn these words is through repeatedly seeing the word in the context of a sentence and alongside the object it represents.  There are a number of books that focus on teaching sight words. Often times books with sight words will indicate that on the cover. Use cards with sight words on them and help the child put them alongside the objects they represent. Eventually the child will begin to associate the written word with the object on their own. Use flashcards to teach sight words. Show the child the card and pronounce the word. Spell it out and use it in a sentence. Then go through and have the child say the word, spell the word and use the word in a sentence. Repeat until the child can identify all the cards. Play games to help the child learn, like bingo. Mark the spaces on a bingo board with sight words, then call the words out. The child must identify the word on his card and mark it. Point out word families. Word families are groups of words that rhyme. Make sure the child notices words that rhyme, such as cat, pat, hat. Once, the child sees the words written and hears the similarity of sounds he will begin to identify the at sound and how it appears when written.

What is a summary?
Teach the alphabet. Build phonemic awareness. Help the child sound out words. Teach sight words.