Reading prep starts at birth
It's not about getting ahead — it's about raising kids who love reading
When children first learn to read, a whole new world opens up to them.
Not because they can immediately jump to reading those coveted books on the family bookshelf, but because a whole new world (and level of independence) opens up to them–on road signs and cereal boxes, on home decor and the weekly Amazon delivery, everywhere!
For young kids, reading is more than a necessary life skill they’ll use someday. It’s even more than a gateway to explore new worlds and stories through books. To them, it feels like a superpower.
If we approach reading in ways that tap into that interest, kids can learn to read joyfully (and practically by themselves).
If this sounds too good to be true, we get it. Many of us don’t reflect on our early reading days with fondness. This is due, in part, to the fact that traditional schools teach children to read too late.
Here’s what we mean:
Reading early matters
Young children are naturally fascinated by language. It’s why they are drawn to look at and listen to the mouths of speakers, love storytime, and absorb more language from these experiences than they do after this sensitive period has closed.
Because of this fascination, learning about language in increasingly new and challenging ways is enjoyable and engaging for them. It’s just like how your newly-walking toddler suddenly wants to push heavy chairs across the room, climb stairs, or lift heavy bags of groceries. The added challenge is enticing in large part because it’s a new challenge and they gain new powers from practicing.
Learning to read young, when approached the right way, can feel just like this process.
But in this case, “young” isn’t six or seven years old (which is when most children start learning to read). The sensitive period for language — the time when language learning is accelerated — begins in infancy.
When we prepare children to read in this sensitive window (which actually ends around age six for most kids), reading is an interesting challenge that they can’t wait to surmount, not a boring slog that’s too easy to capture their attention.
When a child starts the formal Montessori literacy curriculum at 2.5 - 3-years-old, they don’t need a teacher to tell them they have to practice. Because it’s engaging and the materials are designed for independence, they want to do the work!
If we miss the window, however, the necessarily repetitive practice involved in learning to read is less interesting and enjoyable to kids. Learning to read after 6 often requires the adult to be more active directing the process, providing motivation, and monitoring the child because they won’t naturally want to do as much practice.
This is why by the time children reach first grade, they’re typically micromanaged and forced to learn with rote drills that kill the love of language. The whole process is so miserable that educators must resort to ineffective practices that are little better than teaching our kids to guess instead of read.
In other words: to raise strong readers who love reading, we need to teach children to read early.
Here’s how to do it at home:
How to teach reading from infancy
Prep starts early
It might sound far-fetched, but you can prepare your child to read from day one.
Babies and toddlers love exploring sounds and learning new words, and we can capitalize on this by speaking to them intentionally.
This builds their vocabulary, yes, but more importantly at this stage, it familiarizes them with the way words sound. And it’s this familiarity is the foundation that eventually enables a child to read.
How to do it at home
First and foremost, speak to your little one with natural language and proper terms (think “water” instead of “wa wa”). Additionally, try to repeat the same words and actions during daily routines.
For instance, when you’re preparing to change your baby’s diaper, you can consistently say, “First, I’m going to unbutton your onesie.”
Likewise, you can narrate the other things you do, the things that happen, and what you think your baby is saying or trying to do. For example, if your child is working to crawl toward a toy, you can say, “You want the ball” or “The ball is rolling away.”
This narration is called “sportscasting” and is a simple, yet effective way to begin preparing your child to read.
Build supportive skills
Sound familiarity and a solid vocabulary are vital to reading, but they’re not the only skills your little one needs to succeed in this area.
If a toddler can’t sit still long enough to focus on a book, a page, or even a single sentence, then no amount of language practice is going to turn them into an avid reader.
Therefore, skills like self-control, though not directly related to language, have a major impact on reading (and academic performance generally).
How to do it at home
Teaching self-control to little ones is very straightforward: simply give them the effortful work they most want to do, and then don’t interrupt them while they’re doing it.
What does “work” mean to babies and toddlers, you ask? They love moving their bodies and doing anything practical. Tying their shoes, dusting, preparing food… You name it, they want to learn how to do it (and can focus with laser-like precision).
And the best part? This incredible ability to concentrate on a practical task transfers seamlessly to reading.
Engage all the senses
Traditional schools often employ flashcards and other rote drills to teach reading — but this doesn’t have to be the case.
When we engage other senses, particularly touch, children learn to read faster, more easily, and more joyfully.
How to do it at home
There are so many ways to engage your child’s tactile senses, but one of our favorites is the naming game.
Gather objects from around the house and introduce a few at a time. You might say, “This is a fork. This is a spoon,” and then ask your child to point to, grab, and place these objects. You can also ask them to repeat the name after you.
In the same vein, we love playing sound games, which target both the auditory and tactile senses. You can start by asking your child to pick up an object based on the beginning sound of the word. Then, as they get more comfortable, you can play using the ending or middle sounds.
Both of these games are excellent because young children learn best with their hands — even when it comes to academic subjects like reading.
Writing is taught before reading
It seems intuitive to teach reading before writing, but it’s actually far more natural to learn to write first.
Why? Because reading is a more challenging cognitive task than writing in the initial stages. To read, a child must:
Recognize each abstract letter
Recall each letter’s corresponding sound
Blend each sound to form a word (this is really hard for early readers and is often where kids struggle the most!)
Recognize the word’s meaning in context
Meanwhile, writing enables children to begin with something concrete (an animal, an object, etc.) and the word they already know for it. They can then break that word down into sounds and connect each sound to its symbol.
How to do it at home
Even before your toddler is ready to hold a pencil, you can try introducing the Moveable Alphabet.
This is a tactile way for your little one to physically build their own words and sentences (even though they can’t read yet).
In essence, the Moveable Alphabet takes advantage of the phase when children understand sounds and their corresponding letters but can’t yet decode them quickly enough to read. After a year (or less!) of “writing” instead, their literacy skills skyrocket.
Consistent use of these practices often results in what Montessori called “spontaneous literacy.” Children discover, as if by magic, that they can read.
But it’s not magic; it’s science. Toddlers can (and want to) learn to read — they simply need the proper tools to do so.
☀️ This week’s bright spots:
If you have one minute… Kids don’t want to read anymore, even at elite colleges — here’s why Montessori is different.
If you have five minutes… Read Matt’s thread on why writing before reading was so effective for his children.
If you have ten minutes… Read our guide on how to raise a bookworm for more Montessori reading activities that will make your kids love to read.