Expert tips and guides to help you teach your child to read
First grade is where the reading rubber meets the road. Here's exactly what skills your first grader should have, which books they should be reading, and the warning signs that mean you need to act now — not next semester.
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Most phonics apps are dressed-up guessing games. I compared dozens and sorted the real deals from the time-wasters. Here are the 10 best phonics apps for kids in 2026 — plus how to tell if an app is actually teaching your child to read.
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CVC words are the absolute foundation of reading — the first real words your child will decode on their own. Here's a 120+ CVC words list organized by word family, plus the exact blending method I use with my own kids to make every single word stick.
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Second grade is the year reading shifts from 'learning to read' to 'reading to learn.' If your child can't keep up, the gap doesn't close on its own — it widens. Here's exactly what a second grader should be able to do, how to test it at home, and what to do right now if they're behind.
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Most parents massively underestimate how much daily reading time a 7-year-old actually needs. Here's what the research says, what the schools won't tell you, and the exact reading minutes per day by age that build real fluency — not just logging homework minutes.
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Your kid can read every word on the page but can't tell you what happened in the story. That's not reading — that's word-calling. Here are 7 strategies that actually fix comprehension, backed by reading science and tested in my own kitchen.
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Your 4-year-old is ready for phonics — yes, right now. Here's the exact step-by-step plan I use with my own kids, grounded in the Science of Reading, to go from letter sounds to blending CVC words before kindergarten even starts.
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Your kid can read every word on the page and still not understand a single thing they just read. Here's exactly what comprehension should look like at every grade from K through 5th — and what to do when it doesn't.
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Your kid mastered short vowels, nailed the silent-e, and now they're staring at the word 'boil' like it's written in ancient Greek. Welcome to diphthongs — the vowel sounds that slide, and the phonics milestone most parents have never even heard of.
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Your kid can read 'cat' but freezes at 'catnap'? The difference between closed and open syllables is the single biggest unlock for multisyllabic word decoding — and most parents have never heard of either one.
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Your child has dyslexia and the school's 'wait and see' approach is burning months you don't have. Here are 7 Orton-Gillingham-based reading curriculum programs for dyslexia compared head-to-head for 2026 — by a homeschooling mom.
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Parents constantly ask me if they should correct their kid's reading mistakes or stay quiet to protect their confidence. The answer is clear: correct every single time. Here's the science behind why — and the exact method I use with my own kids.
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