I remember, maybe because I hated to learn it with the help of my mother. She is a bit impatient.
Anyways, when she left the room for a few minutes, I tried really hard to understand how it works so that this unpleasant learning time with my mother would be over. I picked the short word "und" and read each letter separately (I knew the letters from school but not how to connect them yet). Then I realised it's the word "und". I tried it with other words and halleluja, 6 or 7 year old me knew how to read. In the end my mother did probably help me, just with pressure instead of an explanation I would understand.