Lesson ideas for teaching English to pre-literate kids
Teaching students from absolute zero is difficult when there is no provided curriculum or structured plan. Even though instructors know they should introduce the alphabet, they find themselves lost trying to fill a weekly hour with lesson ideas for children who cannot read yet.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- People have been saying this in most months since September 2026.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1bringing easy picture booksDid this help you?
- 2just playing with them in English based on parent instructionsDid this help you?
- 3guessing that they should start by teaching the alphabetDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I'm supposed to start with a new student from ZERO, I've never done that before! and there's no curriculum or anything like that, I know I should start with the letters but like I don't have a plan or anything.. 😭”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4How to teach high school reading with elementary literacy curriculum
- 3How can we teach our kids a second language if we don't speak it?
- 3What does my child actually need to know before starting school?
- 2Native English speaker stuck in an ESL class
- 2What lesson should I teach for a job interview demo?
- 3How to plan lessons with no prep time