Getting Ready For Reading

Getting Ready For Reading !

I have had people ask me what I have been doing with the girls, I would think, in particular Tabitha, to help them get ready for reading.  An idea has been forming in my mind, to start another meme, one devoted to teaching our children to read.  Unless someone knows of one out there already, then could you please let me know and I will link up with them.  I know I haven't found one yet.
Tabitha really has shocked me in her ability to read 3 letter and some 4 letter words.  These are words that contain letters using their most common phonetic sound.  I will say straight off, I haven't been using any set curriculum.  I have actually tried a few different books with Tabitha.  When the response was frustration I backed off and decided to wait.  I have actually let things come naturally.  However, I will share some of the different things that seemed to help her learning along.
I am thinking each week I will share some different tips I have gleaned from books I have read and from working at the Montessori, plus what I have seen in my older kids. Additionally I plan to share what we have done the week just prior to the post to GET READY FOR READING.

Please, please join us by sharing what you have learned and what you are doing with your little ones to open up that wonderful world of books.

I would like to focus this week on one of the first important steps to preparing our little ones to read.  Phonemic Awareness.  As I have seen stated in several different places, knowing the alphabet, the names of the letters, really doesn't prepare a child to read.  I mean, it makes sense.  When we say the word, "cat" we don't say, "seeaytee."  We need to know the sounds represented by the letter. /k/ /a/ /t/ so we can say, "cat."  Children need to be aware that words are made up of sounds.  Before I knew all this "phonemic awareness" stuff, I was working at the Montessori learning to play a game with the children.  We would have the sound cards at the circle and would focus on one sound at a time.  When I say sound, most would probably say letter, but in the Montessori they teach the sound first, for the reasons above.  Let's say the sound was "f", This is what we would say: "I hear "fffff" when I say "fish" "ffflower" "fffff" "ffffox""  Then we wait to see if the children can come up with words that start with that sound.  This game is something Tabitha has enjoyed for a while.  And she can also hear the sound at the end of the word and sometimes in the middle.  We always do this for our letter of the week, and she is getting much better at coming up with words of her own.

Do you have any Phonemic Awareness games you play with your little ones?  Please share it in a post and link up.

There is a great book out there by Wiley Blevins called "Phonemic Awareness Activities For Early Reading Success."  This is probably one place were I was reading about the importance of Phonemic Awareness.  I haven't had it out since before the baby was born, so I think it is time to check it out again.  Be aware that it is focused on school teaching in a group, but I am sure there are ways to make it work for homeschooling.

I shared in a post a couple of weeks ago that Tabitha was starting to zing through the Short Vowel a Progressive Phonics book. She has read the stories focused on "at" words and now the "ad" words.  That is 12 pages.  We are so proud of her.  I now have "at" words and "ad" words on the wall next to our Letter of the Week poster.  She can get the words out whenever she wants to look at them, but only once a day will we work with them so she can receive a sticker on the back of each word card she knows.  I didn't want Amelia to feel left out so I made her some letter/sound cards, on which she will also be able to place stickers.

We also have a game to help with reading.  It is Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham game.  I mentioned this in my Homeschool Blog Hop post.  Here are some pictures of daddy playing the game with the girls:

To see what others are doing with their preschoolers and toddlers head over to:

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Reading and Reading Readiness Accomplishments

Well Tabitha is finally ready for the Progressive Phonics books.  The last time I tried to work with her on them we both got frustrated.  Today I pulled them out, figuring she has been sounding out 3 letter and some 4 letter words lately, so she should be able to read along with me.  In one sitting we zinged through the 6 pages of "at" word stories.  She wanted to keep going after each page, even though the baby was crying and I had to keep putting it aside.  She is so proud of herself when she realizes she recognizes the word she just sounded out.
As I was sitting here contemplating this (at three o'clock am) I came up with a little word recognition activity that I am going to try tomorrow (okay, today).  I wrote one "at" word per index card and put the pile in an envelope marked "at words."  The envelope is taped next to our Letter of the Week poster.  I was thinking of having her read them daily and I would put a sticker or smiley face or something on the back of the card each day.  Will post how it goes later on in the week, probably with our weekly post, unless I decide to get around to my reading pointers post.
Also wanted to share that Amelia knows most of her letters and sounds.  She had dropped the letter papers I had made to go with the gel tracing activity I posted about with the Y lessons.  As she picked them up she excitedly stated each one's name and sometimes the sound when she brought it over to the table to pile them back up.  So she is definitely catching on.
I am so proud of them both for these accomplishments.

My Emerging Reader

Every time I have tried to sit down and teach Tabitha to read from books others have used or I have bought or I have borrowed from the library we have gotten frustrated and I have backed off.  I have looked into "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons," Progressive Phonics, and McGuffey Readers to show some of the different things we have tried.  What seems to really work for us is letting it come on the spur of the moment, naturally, playfully.  She knows her letters and their sounds.  We have been doing "letter of the week" for a year and a half now.  Though, if you have read my blog for some time, you will realize we usually take 2 weeks and sometimes a month to do one letter/sound.  Whether it is extra projects I want to complete or not enough time to do anything at all one week, we usually take more than one week.  Which at times bothers me, other times I just go with the flow.  Looking at the way our weeks go I can definitely say we will continue to be relaxed when it comes to our homeschool style. But I can't see fully unschooling because I need to have a plan/goals or I will flounder around.  I thought for sure reading would have to be a subject I need to have a curriculum for, but seeing how well Tabitha has been progressing when we just do spur of the moment learning, I can see how unschooling works.  Of course I have taken some ideas from what I have learned at the Montessori and plan to keep doing so.

On my last post I mentioned how Tabitha was reading simple phonetic words I typed out and was spelling words on her own and writing them.  I thought I would share the two videos I took of her doing just those two things this week. (As I have recently learned how to upload videos to You Tube and embed them in a post).  Unfortunately, I started recording after she was almost done.

To see what others are doing with their toddlers and preschoolers head on over to 1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations

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Time to Read?

I've been thinking about having some sort of poster on the wall to show Tabitha's accomplishments with reading. To showcase the words she knows how to read. I've been thinking about it since I read that Debbie over at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn does something similar with the words from the Progressive Phonics books they use. As we were eating breakfast I decided to see if Tabitha really knew any words. I am actually a little disappointed. I was hoping to avoid the problem of blending sounds to make words. After reading the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons I knew the importance of starting with the continuous sounds like "mmmmm," "ssssssss," "aaaaaaa," etc. Tabitha knows her sounds, but she says each sound separately when sounding out a word, what I was trying to avoid, because that is the way they do it on Starfall.com. Words I thought would be easier for her, because of the continuous sound, like "mat," she struggles with. She seems to have "cat" memorized though.

Anyway, during breakfast, I wrote a list of words, one at a time, on a piece of white computer paper. When she was able to sound it out, with or without help, I attempted to draw a picture of it on the opposite side of the paper. This was all spur of the moment. These are the words I used: cat, can, mat, (Matt is also included because when she finally figured mat out she thought instantly of a friend's brother at church, so I wanted to show her the difference), sand (daddy's contribution) and rat.

Then I separated the words from the pictures by tearing the paper in half.

I separated each word and mixed them up. Tabitha needed to sound the words out and place them next to the correct picture. She needed help with a few. Then I took the pictures away and asked her to hand me the words one at a time as I said them to her.

These spur of the moment "lessons" seem to go over better than ones I plan.

Today I also printed out the first book in the Beginning Phonics section of Progressive Phonics. After thinking about it this morning I decided to take a closer look. It looks quite interesting, but I am not sure now if Tabitha is ready. We got two sentences into it and sometimes she would get the word right other times she didn't. I don't want to push her, and I get frustrated when I think she should be able to do things and she can't (I can feel the old emotions getting ready to burst forth as when the older kids were younger and I tried to work with them. So I backed off quick, as I don't want to frustrate/discourage her.) I will continue to try as long as she is interested.

On a side note, we did spend quite a bit of time on her new Brain Quest cards, at her request. I purchased the 4-5 year old cards as that was the youngest age group the store I bought them at had available. She was able to answer most of the questions on the first 13 cards with virtually no help. I was awed that she remember that 5 pennies equals a nickel, she didn't even have to think about it. She was so upset when MOMMY needed to quit because I needed a break.