Reading Tips

I bought window cling words from the Dollar Tree - The "colors" words... There were 10 paint splashes with colors and the words... and 10 tubes of paint with colors and the words.

I took the window clings and put one set on the car window where Kira sits and the other set on the car window where Marisa sits.

Now when we're in the car, the girls can practice reading the "colors" and learn how each color is spelled. They think it's super cool and I get to work in a school lesson without much effort.

Phonics

I've been spending the last few days teaching Marisa her letter sounds. We make a fun game of the whole process.

I ask her what the letter "A" says.

She tells me that the letter makes some off the wall sound that is completely not what that letter says.

I tell her in a voice that is incredulous that that is NOT what the letter says.

Then I tell here exactly what the letter says.

She repeats what I say about the letter, then we carry on to the next one in line.

We do this for the entire alphabet.

This is the same method I used for Kira two years ago. Kira, however, preferred to tell me that her letters said "nothing" instead of providing me with nonsense sounds. At any rate, Marisa is learning the letter sounds and having fun being obstinate about it. Who knew that "MY" Marisa would enjoy being obstinate and difficult??? (Never saw THAT one coming...)

Scrabble

We spent the day at my mother-in-law's house for Memorial Day. My husband, his mother and I decided to play a couple of friendly games of Scrabble. I happen to really love that game, but rarely have the time to play. While we were playing, Kira sat down and asked a few questions about the game. She asked if she could play, but of course she is a bit too young. However, I decided to play a game with her over on the side while the game of Scrabble was being played.

I took a few of my letter tiles and made some simple 3 letter words for Kira to practice reading. She sounded out several words before she was too tired or bored to continue. She even read a couple of 4 letter words. I was actually very impressed with how well she did.

I've decided that I'm going to have to pull out the Scrabble tiles here just for the purpose of building a few words for her to read every now and then. She seemed to enjoy being able to "slam" the words together after sounding out each individual letter. (Yeah - that's a concept learned in the Leap Frog Talking Word Factory movie...)