Signs Your Child Is Ready to Read

Readiness is mostly audible rather than visible. The things worth noticing happen in conversation and play, not on a page, which is why parents watching for signs on paper often conclude there are none.

Here is what to listen and look for. Nobody has all of these at once, and they arrive in no fixed order.

In their ear

• Notices when two words rhyme, or offers a rhyme unprompted
• Can clap the beats in a word: ba-na-na
• Spots that two words start with the same sound
• Enjoys nonsense words and playing with how words sound
• Can say what is left if you take the first sound off a word

Around print

• Knows a book has a front, and which way the pages go
• Understands that the marks carry the story, not the pictures
• Points at words while being read to
• Recognises their own name written down
• Spots familiar signs and logos out of the house

In how they use language

• Tells a story that has an order to it
• Asks what words mean
• Uses words they have only heard in books
• Can follow a story with no pictures

In how they sit with it

• Will stay with a book for several minutes
• Comes back to the same book repeatedly
• Chooses books when nobody has suggested it

What is not a sign

Knowing the alphabet song. Recognising letters by name. Age. Being able to write their name, which is a hand-control skill. Owning a lot of books. Having a sibling who read early.

None of these predict much. The sound-play ones at the top of this page predict a great deal, and they are the ones nobody thinks to look for.

If you are seeing very few

Then the useful work is the listening kind: rhymes, songs, clapping, silly words, being read to. That is the ground reading grows out of, and it is more productive than starting on letters with a child whose ear is not ready.