Social media will have you feeling like you need to go back and get a teaching degree in order to teach your kids how to read. But trust me, you don't. I have a teaching degree and I still did not know how to teach reading. But I figured out how and I taught both my kids how to read. I want to tell you what I wish someone had told me when I got started.

Last January, I bought the Toddlers Can Read* course to help my son learn to read before kindergarten. My initial goal was simple: I wanted him to be able to read basic text, like the first book in the Toddlers Can Read course titled Tap, which contains a lot of three-letter words. My hope was for him to gain introductory reading skills, where he could go through a book and read words like "pat" and "rat." I wanted him to know letter sounds and read simple words.