Timing

Did you know that in the morning when a child is fresh and wide awake they can read? Did you know that in the evening when they are tired and worn out they forget how to read? I should have remembered this fact when I decided that baby would show off her reading skills to her Dad. She started out all right, well she got the first three words. Then she started looking around, trying to guess her words and just basically getting tired of reading.

We just changed it to reading one page instead of two and Mom helped her out lots. It is so important that they have successful experiences and feel good about the whole reading ordeal. Believe me I have done it both ways, and the positive way is much superior to the yelling, threatening and guilting them into reading.

That is a really bad admission, but hey it is true. I have even been known to a little bop when they were learning the "ow" and "ou" sounds :)

II Teaching Reading

After the first five weeks now you all are rolling along on those vowels. Next step would be to throw in some fun consonants. I usually begin with M. That is a really fun one to teach, as it can be a word into itself. For example the first day we may go out for a yummy treat to eat. As we are eating I say "MMMM, this is so good". That is their first exposure to beginning sounds of words. Usually we only spend two or three days on the consonant sounds.

Day one we would make an art project with the "M". Again be creative and use something you both love. It could even be pretzels shaped like an "M" if you both like cooking.

Day two would be cutting out pictures of "M" words. Try to make very obvious ones that have lots of m sound.

Day three would be sounding out a list of words with all the vowels following "m". The really cool thing is you can say they are reading at this point. All you have to do is have them take a picture of someone eating something yummy and write "MMMMMM" underneath it as the caption. That introduces the kids to the idea that all sounds go together to make a word that actually means something.

They will not just click at this point, that takes may hours of them reading before they actually get this concept. If any of your children have ADD as one of ours did, pretty bad in fact, you may have to change things up a bit.

With our son he did not get reading until he was well into six. In fact it did not click for him until he started piano lessons. Something about reading the music finally did for him what reading practice could not seem to do.

Again take your time, they will get it eventually!

Teaching Reading

I have lots of people ask me how to teach reading to their children, so thought I would give a step by step guide this week. You don't have to have anything fancy, in fact you can make all your own supplies and not buy a single thing.

The first step will be teaching them to recognize the sounds of the letters. Start with the vowels. AEIOU should be the first sounds they learn. I don't teach them the long vowels until they have learned all the sounds. Just the short vowels to start with.

How to do this?

The first week will be A week. Monday I would make a collage with a big and little A. They could make a noodle collage, or even just multi colored paper torn into small pieces glued onto the big and little a. Or make a bean collage, we have done that one.

Tuesday I would let them make a A necklace. Help them draw and cut out a big and little A and string it on a necklace. Of course all the time you are saying A and talking about different words that begin with the sound.

Wednesday I would take a bunch of old newspapers or magazines and cut out all the A words you can find and put them in their A booklet.

Thursday I would have them color a picture of A and several items that begin with A.

Friday I would have them practice writing big and little A's in their A notebook on lined paper.

By the end of the week they will know A. The next week go to E and so on until after five weeks they will know their vowels. I will give you some tips for the following weeks manana.