Start With Sounds
A free starter guide - Stage 1 of how I taught my toddler to read
Want the complete four-stage phonics journey?
Get the full E-book →The stages (the ones from the reel)
If you came here from the reel, this is the road:
In the full book I group these into four stages, because blending is really one stage with two steps inside it - and the order of those two steps is the single most useful thing I learned.
Letter sounds
The sound each letter makes, A→Z.
Months 1–4
Blending
Sliding sounds together - c-at → cat.
Months 5–7
Sight words
The everyday words you can’t sound out - the, is, a.
Months 6–10
Simple sentences
Both skills together - “The cat is on the mat.”
Months 10–12
She was 18 months old when we started. She read her first sentence around 2.5.
Stage 1: Letter sounds
Stage 1 is where the whole journey begins - with one small shift in how we talk to our toddlers about letters.
Instead of teaching my daughter that “A” is called ay, I taught her the sound A makes: /a/.
That one change - sounds instead of names - is the quiet foundation everything else is built on. Blending, sight words, sentences: none of it works without a strong grasp of letter sounds first.
Step one: I learned the sounds myself
Before I taught my daughter a single letter, I sat down and made sure I actually knew each sound properly.
That might sound obvious, but honestly - I hadn’t thought about phonics since I was in school myself. Some sounds I remembered clearly. Others I second-guessed. So I spent a little time on YouTube watching phonics videos and quietly practicing the sounds in the mirror until they felt natural coming out of my mouth.
I cannot recommend this prep step enough. It only takes a couple of hours to get comfortable, and it pays off across every stage that follows. Feeling confident with the sounds yourself makes a huge difference in how naturally you can pass them on.
What we actually did
Five simple things, repeated often. Nothing that required a big time commitment. Tap each one to read it.
1Alphabet flashcards, one sound at a time
Simple ones - a big letter on the front, a picture below. We’d sit together, I’d hold up a card, say the sound clearly, and ask her to say it back. That was it. Unhurried, no drills, no expectations.
We went through A–Z at whatever pace felt right for her. Some sessions we did five letters. Some sessions two. Some days she wasn’t in the mood and we did none.
2Alphabet books with big letters
I looked specifically for books where the letter was huge on the page - not tucked in a corner. As we turned each page, I’d trace the letter with my finger, say the sound, and invite her to say it back.
Reading these felt like storytime, not “learning time.” That mattered.
3Alphabet posters in her play area
This is one of the small things I’m most glad I did. I put posters up in the corners of her play space - bright, visible, always within her line of sight. Letters were around her constantly, even when we weren’t doing a focused activity.
Whenever a natural pause happened - between toys, waiting for something, climbing off the couch - I could point at a letter on the wall and quickly say its sound. She’d say it back. Ten seconds. Then we’d move on.
Passive exposure like this is underrated. Letters don’t have to be presented at a table to matter. They can just… live in the room.
4Quick reviews in between everything
This became our rhythm. Rather than one long “phonics session” a day, we did lots of tiny ones. While waiting for snack. While putting on shoes. While she was in her highchair. Two, maybe three sounds at a time. A minute, sometimes less.
Those micro-sessions added up faster than any structured lesson would have. Toddlers have short attention spans - leaning into that instead of fighting it made all the difference.
5Repeating after me during our day
The core loop, across all of the above, was simple:
I say the sound. She repeats it.
Model the sound. Wait. Let her try. Move on. That was the whole activity - whether we were sitting with flashcards, walking past a poster, or reading a book.
Over time, she started saying the sounds before I did. That’s when I knew she was really learning them, not just parroting.
Why we went in alphabetical order
There are a few different orders phonics programs use, but I chose A to Z. Two honest reasons:
It’s the order I knew, the order in every alphabet book we owned, and the order she was already hearing in songs. Consistency across sources helped it stick.
It felt natural to me as a mom - no pressure to remember a specific sequence, no worrying if I was doing it “right.”
If you prefer a different order (like the popular s-a-t-p-i-n sequence), that’s completely fine. What matters most is that you feel comfortable with the order you choose. Your confidence flows into your child.
The pace that actually worked
A little bit, often - even 1 to 2 minutes at a time - is enough.
I never sat her down for a 20-minute lesson. I never held her at the flashcards when she wasn’t interested. I trusted that lots of short exposures across many days would beat one long session on any single day.
That trust turned out to be well placed.
Signs we felt ready to move on
There wasn’t a test moment. But looking back, the signs Stage 1 was winding down were pretty clear in her behavior:
- She was confidently saying most letter sounds when I pointed at them
- She was noticing letters on her own - on packaging, clothing, signs
- She was saying sounds before I did
When those started happening consistently, I gently introduced the next idea: that sounds can slide together to make actual words.
A preview of Stage 2: my first attempt failed
I want to be honest here, because I think it’s one of the most useful things I can share.
My first attempt at teaching blending was with a blackboard. I’d write a simple word like at and try to walk her through blending the sounds together.
It flopped. Completely.
She was far more interested in grabbing the chalk and scribbling than paying attention to what I was writing. Which, honestly, is exactly what you’d expect from a toddler. A blank blackboard is basically an invitation to scribble.
I don’t share this to warn you off blackboards - we actually came back to it later and it worked beautifully. I share it because it’s easy to assume a method has failed when really, it was just the timing or the format that wasn’t right yet. The learning didn’t fail. The tool just needed to change.
What was hard
c · a · t meant holding three separate pieces in her head, then reassembling them.
The shift that fixed it
Blend just two chunks: a first sound plus a familiar ending.
- Instead of c-a-t, I taught it as c–at
- Instead of s-u-n, I taught it as s–un
- Instead of b-a-t, I taught it as b–at
The first sound is a single letter. The second chunk is a familiar ending - at, un, in, op. Once she knew at as a chunk, all I had to do was swap the beginning letter to unlock a whole family of words:
Two moving pieces instead of three. Much easier for a toddler brain to hold onto. The moment this switch happened, blending stopped feeling like a puzzle and started feeling like a game she could actually win.
The tools we used to make this stick - and what came after - are in the book.
What’s in the full book
How I Taught My Toddler to Read is the whole story, start to finish: the stages we moved through, the activities we actually used, the tools that helped, the mistakes I made, and the small everyday moments that quietly added up to something bigger than I expected.
You’ve just read Stage 1. The book covers:
Stage 2 - Blending in full
The exact tools that made it click, word families in order, and how we eventually came back to the blackboard.
Stage 3 - Sight words
Why they matter, the exact words I started with, timing, and how not to confuse your phonics work.
Stage 4 - Simple sentences
First sentences, building variety, what I do when she gets stuck, and my “reading or memorizing?” test.
Your first week
A gentle actionable plan, with one track for letter sounds and another for children ready to blend.
Readiness at every stage
Clear signs at the end of each stage so you know when to move on.
Continue with Stages 2, 3, and 4 in the complete guide.
Get the E-book →A note from me
If reading this leaves you with one useful idea - one small activity you’d like to try, one moment of “oh, I could do that” - I’ll count that as a win.
What I can offer is the map I wish I’d had the day I casually opened my first phonics video, thinking it was just another toddler activity to try.
Whatever unfolds from here - small wins, slow weeks, unexpected leaps, or messy in-between moments - I’d love to see them. Tag me @toddlermilestones or send me a DM.
Pradnya Dhadiwal
This is a personal memoir shared for educational and informational purposes. Every child develops at their own pace; nothing here is medical, educational, or developmental advice.