The Reading Skill Set: All the research on the best ways to help your child learn to read 

Helping your child get off to a strong start with reading is one of the most valuable gifts you can give them. Many American children are struggling with reading. In fact, recent data shows that 67% of U.S. 4th graders read below grade level¹. The reasons for this are complex, but one thing is certain: Regular practice at home makes a big difference.

This is why Lovevery developed The Reading Skill Set. We began by studying decades of research on the most effective ways to help children learn to read. Then, we incorporated what we already know about how they play and learn. Many parents we talked to during our own research felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of teaching their child to read. But The Reading Skill Set doesn’t ask you to be your child’s teacher—it asks you to be their coach ❤️

Because each game focuses on a single phonics skill, you and your child can play until you both feel ready to move on. Once they’ve acquired enough skills to actually start reading, the books in The Reading Skill Set use controlled text. This means your child will only encounter the phonics rules they’ve already practiced, along with a small list of words that don’t follow predictable spelling patterns. We call these “sticky words.”

Learning to read may be hard for your child, but they already know how to play. That’s why play was the focus of The Reading Skill Set from the beginning. After so many decades and countless studies, the research is clear about the most effective ways to teach reading. The tricky part is how to keep a child motivated and interested all the way through the process. 

Play is the key—and Lovevery understands play. We made sure that every single part of The Reading Skill Set is fun, motivating, and grounded in best practices, so you can help your child become a fluent, confident reader—and have fun doing it ❤️

Here’s what the research says about how children learn to read

Reading programs are most effective when they include the 5 Big Ideas of Reading^2,3

There’s no shortcut for learning to read—it’s a complex skill made up of many interconnected elements. The Reading Skill Set incorporates the 5 Big Ideas of Reading. Reading instruction that incorporates all five categories—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension—helps children fluently decode text and understand what it means. 

The 5 Big Ideas are most effective when they’re taught together. Before a new reader can use phonics rules to decode, they need phonemic awareness to help them hear the sounds within words. Fluency and comprehension come when your child has decoded text enough times that they can recognize and understand it almost at first glance. The reading comprehension questions at the back of each book provide helpful prompts to build this skill. 

Decades of research show that phonics-based instruction is the best way to help children learn to read^3,4,5

A phonics approach teaches your child how to identify each letter form and connect it to its most common sound. Once your child can do that, they can begin blending sounds together to read words and sentences.

This is why The Reading Skill Set takes them through a deliberate phonics progression of letters and their corresponding sounds. Historically, resistance to phonics instruction has stemmed from a perception that it’s all drills and flashcards, but it doesn’t have to be. The Reading Skill Set is made up of fun games and activities as well as engaging, relatable books. 

The program begins with a concept called phonological awareness, which is the ability to hear the sounds within words. The smallest unit of sound—and the most challenging to isolate—is called a phoneme. Phonemes include both individual letter sounds and digraphs, which are two letters that combine to make a single sound. The word path, for example, consists of three phonemes: /p/, /a/, and /th/. Being able to isolate sounds is as important as knowing the sounds particular letters make.

The Wooden Letter Sound Blocks combine phonological awareness with the most important phonics skill—knowing the sound each letter makes. Among a set of four blocks, your child must find the side of each that starts with the same letter sound. Once all four matching sides are set up correctly, the letter form appears on top. The game introduces six phonemes and corresponding letter forms at a time, and each grouping is designed to avoid confusion between similar-looking letters, like p, d, q, and b.  

Parts 2 and 3 take your child through the phonics skills they need to blend and segment words all the way through decoding longer words with more complex phonics rules. To do this, they’ll need practice, repetition, and a deliberate progression. 

Children who work on literacy skills at home often have a stronger reading foundation^6,7 

Research suggests that children whose parents introduce early reading skills at home have an easier time once they begin school. But you don’t have to be a literacy expert to help your child learn to read. Long before their formal reading instruction begins, you can support your child by helping them learn new vocabulary and foundational skills, like identifying letter sounds and breaking words down into syllables. 

The question is how? Being your child’s reading coach may sound daunting, but The Reading Skill Set makes it as simple as playing a game and reading a book. 

• Each game focuses on a single skill, and many can be played either independently or with you.
• Books include only the phonics rules your child has already practiced, plus a small list of irregular “sticky words” to gradually build their fluency and confidence.
• The comprehension questions at the end of each book help your child think more deeply about what they’ve read.
• The Parent Guide that comes with each part helps you feel confident supporting your child.

Children make more progress when they practice a skill before reading a book⁸ 

Trying to read a book without learning and practicing the phonics rules first can quickly lead to frustration and resistance. The Reading Skill Set helps you avoid these moments with a game or activity designed to introduce every new skill. Your child can build their confidence and familiarity with each one by playing the game until they’re ready to practice with a book.

You may often hear the word “decodable” in reference to learning how to read. Good decodable books encourage children to read or decode words without relying on guessing. But it’s also important that your child has learned the skills required to read them. Pairing a game with each book series increases the chances that the books will actually be decodable for your child.

Part 1 of The Reading Skill Set includes more games than books to help your child build phonological awareness along with early phonics and comprehension skills. It ends with Book Series 1: Turn-taking. These are books you read with your child to build their stamina and motivation.

In Part 2, your child will read their first books independently. Games like Crossword Builder and Sticky Word Snack Sticks help them learn how to approach sticky words and apply the phonics rules they’ve learned so far. 

Part 3 has more books than games. Once your child has completed this part, they will have read their first books with uncontrolled text. These chapter books are not restricted to any particular phonics rules and are more like the books your child will encounter at the library or bookstore.

Children prefer to read—and reread—books they can relate to⁹ 

Your child is more likely to practice reading—and even look forward to it—when the characters and stories in their books reflect their own life. This can be hard to find in beginning reader books, which have few words. But The Reading Skill Set incorporates the same compelling storylines, vivid photography, and relatable characters as other Lovevery books.

To hook beginning readers, The Reading Skill Set books rely on humor, silly situations, and playful images. There are nine series covering multiple genres, including mystery, nonfiction, and even elements of a comic book. Intriguing surprises—like a tool that makes hidden text appear and a time capsule filled with envelopes to open—help your child stay motivated as the reading gets more complex.

Appealing to so many different tastes makes it more likely that your child will find a book that they love and return to it again and again. Their fluency and comprehension improve each time they reread the same book. Familiar text helps your child read with more speed, expression, and confidence. It also helps them read sticky words at first glance, instead of having to decode them.

Children learn best through playful sensory experiences without screens^10,11,12,13

Research shows that when children use multiple senses—like touch, sight, and sound—they gain a deeper understanding of what they’re learning. The Reading Skill Set uses tangible objects to motivate your child and help them grasp abstract concepts like letter sounds and syllables. Reading apps can be exciting, but without something three-dimensional to hold or touch, the concepts remain abstract.

One of these concepts is an umbrella term called vowel teams, which refers to letter combinations that make predictable vowel sounds. For example, oe usually makes the long o sound, and –igh typically makes the long i sound. There are only six vowels in the alphabet, but up to 20 vowel sounds in the English language. 

Much like learning each letter’s most common sound, knowing the vowel teams by heart improves your child’s fluency. But memorizing them is hard, especially because many vowel teams make multiple sounds. This is where a lot of phonics approaches—even apps—rely on rote memorization. The Reading Skill Set relies on penguins 😉

The goal of the Vowel Team Penguin Walk game is to balance as many penguins as possible on a single iceberg. To get there, your child needs to hop the penguin from word to word, reading each one as they go. When the penguins lose their balance and fall off the iceberg, the game starts over again. Trying to win by balancing all eight penguins keeps your child engaged, so they can commit these vowel combinations to memory.

Oral language and storytelling skills improve reading comprehension^14,15

Storytelling is an often overlooked aspect of reading instruction. Each time your child hears a story or tells one of their own, they learn new vocabulary, idioms, and expressions, as well as proper sentence construction. Research has shown that when adults tell stories, they use more complex vocabulary than is typically found in books—so try not to simplify your words. 

Telling stories helps build the background knowledge your child needs to understand and enjoy books. For example, a simple story set in a forest can introduce the names of new kinds of trees and animals. When you tell a story, ask your child questions about it as you go. This helps them learn to infer meaning from context, a critical higher-level comprehension skill. You could ask, “How do you think the frog felt when her lily pad ripped? How can you tell?”

Storytelling also helps your child understand how stories work. “Story grammar” refers to the elements of a narrative—including characters, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution. Once your child starts reading their own books, they’ll need to be familiar with many of these elements to understand what’s happening. Telling and hearing lots of stories now gives them important practice.

The Set the Scene Storytelling Stage gives your child the opportunity to create original stories from prompts. As they tell their story, they’ll use props and background scenery to fill in details. Partway through,, your child will have to incorporate a twist—a problem or conflict to resolve as they bring their story to a conclusion.

Learn more about the research

¹ National Assessment Of Educational Progress. Nation’s Report Card: The National Assessment of Educational Progress NAEP. United States, 2008.

² National Center on Improving Literacy (2023). The 5 Big Ideas of Beginning Reading. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Improving Literacy. Retrieved from http://improvingliteracy.org.

³ National Reading Panel (US), National Institute of Child Health, & Human Development (US). (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: Reports of the subgroups. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.

⁴ Ehri, Linnea. “The Science of Learning to Read Words: A Case for Systematic Phonics Instruction.” Reading Research Quarterly 55, s1 (2020): S45-S60.

⁵ Ehri, Linnea, Simone Nunes, Steven Stahl, and Dale Willows. “Systematic Phonics Instruction Helps Students Learn to Read: Evidence From the National Reading Panel’s Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Direct Instruction 2, no. 2 (2001): 393-447.

⁶ Evans, M. A., & Shaw, D. (2008). Home grown for reading: Parental contributions to young children’s emergent literacy and word recognition. Canadian Psychology, 49(2), 89.

⁷ Petrill, S. A., Deater-Deckard, K., Schatschneider, C., & Davis, C. (2005). Measured Environmental Influences on Early Reading: Evidence From an Adoption Study. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(3), 237–259.

⁸ Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., Fletcher, J. M., Schatschneider, C., & Mehta, P. (1998). “The role of instruction in learning to read: Preventing reading failure in at-risk children”: Erratum. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(2), 235.

⁹ McRae, A., & Guthrie, J.T. (2009). Promoting reasons for reading: Teacher practices that impact motivation. In E. H. Hiebert (Ed.), Reading more, reading better (pp. 55-76). New York: Guilford Press.

¹⁰ Schroer, S. E., & Yu, C. (2023). Looking is not enough: Multimodal attention supports the real‐time learning of new words. Developmental Science, 26(2), e13290.

¹¹ Gibbon, J., Duffield, S., Hoffman, J & Wageman, J. (2017). Effects of educational games on sight word reading achievement and student motivation. Journal of Language & Literacy Education, 13(2), 1-27.

¹² Pullen, P. & Lane, H. (2016). Hands-on decoding: Guidelines for using manipulative letters. Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 21(1), 27-37.

¹³ Neumann, M. & Neumann, D. (2014). Touch screen tablets and emergent literacy. Early Childhood Education, 42, 231-239.

¹⁴ Kendeou, Panayiota, Paul van den Broek, Mary White, Julie Lynch, “Predicting Reading Comprehension in Early Elementary School: The Independent Contributions of Oral Language and Decoding Skills.” Journal of Educational Psychology 101, no. 4 (2009): 765-778.

¹⁵ Isbell, Rebecca, Joseph Sobol, Liane Lindauer, and April Lowrance (2004). “The Effects of Storytelling and Story Reading on the Oral Language Complexity and Story Comprehension of Young Children.” Early Childhood Education Journal 32, no. 3 (2004): 157-163.