My daughter has always loved for me to read to her. When I want her to do something, I tell her I will read later, and she moves. But she doesn’t like reading—she likes reading pre-school books if she has to read. I don’t know how to help when it comes to rules as when a “y” sounds like an “i” or why “e” is silent. So I just tell her without any reason and I get frustrated—do the reading for both of us and let her read her baby books. What do I do?

You’re right in recognizing and being frustrated with the many exceptions that are in our English language. However, there are still many rules that apply and can be taught. There is the “i” before “e” rule, the two-vowel rule (this one easily explains why many e’s are silent), the “ar” rule is always “ar” as in car, etc. There are many exceptions we have to learn as we begin to read, but understanding the rules first, and then learning the exceptions will be very helpful and cut down drastically on the frustration.

When a child is taught those rules and how to apply them, they then have the tools/skills to be able to decode the words they’re seeing in a book. Perhaps your daughter isn’t comfortable with her own reading confidence/ability, and therefore likes to stay with the preschool books that she’s familiar with. Teaching her the basic concepts of letter identification, sound, and then the very important blending concepts will improve her reading confidence and abilities. Keep her in phonetic reading books until she grasps these concepts, and then slowly introduce books and words that experiment with the exceptions in our language. We all have to know the rules before we can accept and understand that there are occasional exceptions, not the other way round. Good luck and enjoy the process of working and learning with your daughter.