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Whether you have a newborn, a busy toddler, or an active preschooler, the question—” When will my child learn to read?”—has likely crossed your mind. According to experts, most kids learn to read by the time they are 6 or 7 years old.1

Reading Milestones. Nemours Kids Health.

But the process of reading begins long before that.

In fact, the first 3 years of your child’s life is the most important time for speech and language development. For this reason, you should be reading to your baby, singing to them, and talking about things that are happening in their day. These actions stimulate their brain development and build literacy skills.2

“Pre-literacy skills can begin as early as a newborn and into the first few months of life,” says Kristin Miller, director of education at the Celebree School. “Reading out loud regularly to your infant helps…build vocabulary, and encourages a love of reading into their toddler years and beyond.”

Average Age Kids Learn to Read

By the time children are in kindergarten, they are expected to recognize their name and know how to hold a writing utensil. They also should be able to identify all 26 uppercase and lowercase letters, says Yvette Manns, MEd, a language and literacy specialist, author, certified dyslexia practitioner, and creator of Phonics Read-Alouds book series. 

“Beyond the letters’ names, children also need to know the 44 sounds of English, called phonemes,” explains Manns. “These phonemes are important because children will learn the sound-symbol (letter) relationships, which is what we know as phonics. Phonics will help them break the code of words and learn to be successful readers.”

Equipping your child with these early literacy skills before kindergarten is important to their success at becoming a reader by the time they are 6 or 7 years old. This means introducing them to books, letters, sounds, words, and more long before you fill out the school enrollment forms. 

However, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reports that as many as one in three children enter kindergarten without the needed language skills to learn how to read.2 This could potentially put them behind and make it challenging for them to keep up. It also may slow them down in making the crucial transition in third grade from learning to read to reading to learn.

Reading Milestones to Watch For 

The first step in helping a child learn to read is simply reading aloud to them frequently from the time they are a baby and giving them a collection of books to “read” on their own, says Kathryn Starke, MS, a former elementary school teacher, national literacy consultant, and author of Tackle Reading.

In fact, research shows that reading books to your child as an infant can boost vocabulary and reading skills years later—long before the start of elementary school. And, by the time they reach their fourth birthday, they could be displaying emergent literacy skills, such as name-writing.3 As they get older, they will identify letters or combinations of letters, and then connect those letters to sounds.

Here are some other milestones you might notice along the way. 

Toddlers 

By 18 months, toddlers are continuing to develop their language and communication skills and laying the groundwork for future literacy, says Miller. Pre-literacy milestones you might observe in an 18-month old include:

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