Learning to read does not just start when your child enters school. Babies and young children are constantly learning skills that will help them master literacy. Children between the ages of 2-5 years old are at a critical age where their language skills are quickly evolving, and they are constantly absorbing information.

Parents often think that the actual act of reading only begins when their child begins reading actual books. However, the reading process starts long before that.

Learning to read actually begins once your child starts becoming aware of language and phonemic awareness. This starts as early as the womb, when parents talk to read their soon-to-be baby.

The key to raising a reader is giving them opportunities to learn different reading skills early on. Toddler reading programs can help young children acquire the foundation to become a successful reader in the future.

Getting your toddler to use a reading program can be a helpful way to make sure their language skills in general, not even just reading skills, are on track.

Here are some of our favorite toddler reading programs that truly work wonders:

• Readability – Readability is a great app for school age children to practice and enhance their reading skills, but it can also work great for very young children as well.

The app has a massive collection of original content that is constantly being updated, so your child will never run out of stories to read.

This reading app is especially great for toddlers because it has the ability to read the stories to your child so that they have a model for reading whenever they want.

The app also provides an interactive reading experience with colorful and engaging illustrations that your toddler will love.

• ABCMouse Early Learning Academy – ABCMouse has fast become a go-to for preschool and kindergarten teachers to help facilitate learning in the classroom with tablets.

It is a great reading program to use at home as well because it “grows” with your child.

The program has different levels and can help your child build their skills no matter what grade they are. They start off with learning phonemic awareness and the alphabet. As your child grows older they can access more advanced levels.

• FirstWords: Animals – This fun and interactive game is meant to help your child learn to recognize letters and enhance their phonemic awareness.

Your child has to match the letter tiles to spell out the names of animals. If they get the spelling right, the illustration makes the sound of the animal.

This app also helps enhance your child’s fine motor skills when they are matching the tiles.

• Interactive Alphabet – Learning the alphabet is often the beginning steps of teaching your child to read.

This highly interactive app makes learning the alphabet fun and engaging. The app provides various activities for your child to stimulate their learning in different ways.

Your child can hear songs and singalong to learn the alphabet. They also get a little bit of writing practice by tracing letters and you can even customize it to upload your own photos and images.

• Homer – This award winning app takes the approach of content-learning to help your young children learn to read.

You can choose from topics that your child is interested in such as their favorite TV show or activity. There are thousands of lessons on phonics, sight words, and other reading skills.

This is another app that your child can use as they grow up. The app provides specific lessons for specific age groups.

• Reading Raven – This interactive reading program helps your toddler build their reading skills by focusing on their phonemic awareness.

This phonics-based program uses fun games to help your child become familiar with the sounds of the letters and also helps them to learn to spell words.

There are also lessons to help build their sight words familiarity, which is often the first step to vocabulary building for young children.

Exposing your children to reading skills early on can help ensure that they are successful with learning to read when they are in school. In fact, children who are exposed to reading and reading is set as a priority in their households usually end up doing better when they are learning to read.

Learning the alphabet, sight words, and building phonemic awareness are the building blocks to successful reading in the future. When they learn these skills early, they are able to actually enjoy the act of reading quicker and end up becoming enthusiastic readers.

Using effective reading programs like Readability can help get your child ahead in the reading game and can also enhance other skills such as writing. These research-based toddler reading programs are effective ways to help your child build the necessary reading skills even before they enter 1st grade.