Let me be clear from the start: in my classroom, children aged three to five do not learn to read. That happens at six, when they enter CP. My role is to build the foundations that will make reading possible. And those foundations rest on three pillars: phonological awareness, letter-sound connections, and rich, constant oral language.
It Starts with the Environment
Before any formal learning activity begins, a child walks into a classroom. And that classroom needs to be doing the teaching before I even open my mouth.
I design every aspect of the environment with intentionality. Displays are built progressively throughout the year with the children, not for decoration, but as living references they helped create and can therefore use. Books are everywhere, accessible at all times. During transitions (those in-between moments when children move from one activity to the next), they can pick up a book and leaf through it. This constant, low-pressure exposure to written language is enormously powerful.
I read children's literature to them every day. Not as a reward or a time-filler, but as a core part of the learning. I also practise dictée à l'adulte, where a child tells me what they want to say and watches me write their words down. They see their spoken language become written text. They begin to understand, viscerally, that writing is speech made permanent.
"A child does not need to learn to read at three. They need a brain that is ready to read at six."
The Three Pillars
My approach is phonological at its core. Three things are fundamental in my classroom for preparing every child's brain to enter reading:
Phonological awareness comes first. Before children can connect letters to sounds, they need to hear sounds within spoken language. We play with rhymes, clap syllables, isolate initial sounds. This is not a worksheet exercise. It is games, songs, and daily oral play.
Letter-sound connections come next. Here is where I have found something that works especially well: a multisensory approach that combines visual, gestural, and auditory input. I use playful flashcards where each letter is drawn as a character linked to its sound. The letter A, for example, is illustrated as a little person at the doctor's office, opening their mouth wide and saying "AAAA." Every letter has its own story, its own gesture, its own scene.
The result? Through repetition and daily exposure to these flashcards, children learn all the letter sounds surprisingly quickly. This is the essential skill they need to begin decoding written language.
Rich oral language ties everything together. I talk to the children constantly, not in simplified baby language, but in proper, rich, varied French (and English). I ask open questions, I extend their sentences, I introduce new vocabulary in context. A child with a rich oral language base has a massive advantage when they begin to read, because reading is ultimately about accessing meaning from text. Meaning lives in language.
Differentiation: Working with the Zone of Proximal Development
In any nursery class, the range of abilities is enormous. Some children arrive already recognising letters; others have had very little exposure to books at home. My response is differentiated workshops, where each activity is calibrated to the individual child's level.
I work constantly with what Vygotsky called the zone of proximal development, that sweet spot between what a child can do alone and what they can do with support. If the task is too easy, the child is bored. Too hard, and they are overwhelmed. The goal is to keep every child in that zone where they feel stimulated, challenged, and capable of growth.
This means no two children in my class are necessarily doing the same thing at the same time. That is not chaos. It is intentional design.
What Parents Get Wrong About Reading
The most common mistake I see from well-meaning parents is confusing knowing the alphabet with being ready to read. A child who can recite "A, B, C, D..." has memorised a sequence, like the lyrics of a song. It is a nice party trick, but it has almost nothing to do with reading.
Reading readiness is about understanding that letters represent sounds, that sounds combine to form words, and that words carry messages. A child who knows that "M" says /m/ and can hear the /m/ at the beginning of "maman" is closer to reading than a child who can sing the entire alphabet.
I also often see parents buying activity workbooks for their preschoolers: fill-in-the-blank exercises, tracing letters on dotted lines. I understand the impulse, but I do not think it is the right approach at this age. What helps far more is simpler: read to your child, surround them with books, and talk to them. Talk to them constantly, with appropriate and rich language. That is the single most impactful thing a parent can do for their child's future reading ability.
What Does not Work
Over the years, I have learned what to avoid. Having children guess words from images without context does not work. It teaches guessing, not reading. Teaching vocabulary in isolation, disconnected from a class project or a meaningful situation, does not stick. Children at this age need meaning. They need to understand why they are learning something. When learning is embedded in a project they care about, everything clicks.
Preparing Brains, Not Producing Readers
My job in nursery school is not to produce children who can read. It is to produce children whose brains are wired, primed, and eager to read when the time comes. The phonological awareness, the letter-sound associations, the rich oral language, the love of books. These are the gifts I try to give every child who passes through my classroom.
When they arrive in CP at six and begin formal reading instruction, I want them to think: "Oh, I know this. I have been getting ready for this." That feeling of readiness, that confidence, is worth more than any head start.