What have I done to help Tabitha to learn to read? Part 1

Well, we haven't really done anything new this week for reading "lessons."  Tabitha has read a few days at nap time to me.  She is still reading Hello Reader level 1 books.  And I was thrilled to see that my library system had one of the books I wanted to look at more closely from the Sonlight booklist for the Grade 1 Readers called I Can Read It! by John Holzmann.  It is their phonics reading program.  Tabitha wanted to read from it the other day (I really only had it because I have been checking out Sonlight books so I could see if I wanted to go with their curriculum) so I let her.  She read the first "story" no problem as it is mainly "at" words.  Even though she could probably read stories later on in the book I have decided to start at the beginning so I am not missing anything important.  That is, as long as she is interested.

I have been wracking my brain, trying to determine how much of a part I may have played in Tabitha's reading skills, or if she is just gifted this way.  I know I don't want to push her or hold her back.  At the same time Amelia is almost three and I want to make sure, if there was anything specific I did to help Tabitha, that I don't miss opportunities with Amelia.  So I started to jot down some of the things that I did with Tabitha these past four years.

For starters I read her loads and loads of books. And I read loads and loads of books myself.  The experts say that is recommended.  Seems to have helped.
Some of my favorite books to have read to her are the Readers Digest Sesame Street Alphabet books that had belonged to Krystal.  I still remember the day she demonstrated to me that she was understanding and recognizing letters.  I had the O book, Oscar's Ode to O and she knew by the cover (which is just the letter O) that Oscar was going to be in this book.  She also recognized and pointed out some o's in the book itself.  I love how these books focus on one letter in each book.  Words that begin with the target letter are highlighted.  They are not easy to find, but if you can get your hands on them, I would recommend it.  If you don't have a problem with Sesame Street that is.

I am not sure if our introduction of sign language helped at all, but I know it didn't hinder.  She was speaking in 11 word sentences before the age of 2 (I believe) and using some interesting vocabulary correctly (perforation, for example).
At first I wasn't trying to "teach" her.  Things just came along spontaneously, as they still do.  Some of our best learning is done spontaneously, especially at meal times.  The first time I tried something educational on purpose was a "P" lunch.  This was way before I had even heard of blogging.  At the same time I also started doing more crafts with her, lots of them ending up being one to one counting crafts as well.  Around Christmas of 2008, before she turned 2, I had read a book called Native Reading: How to Teach Your Child to Read, Easily and Naturally, Before the Age of Three by Timothy Kailing.

While I do not agree with everything stated in this book I did find some great tips.  I started making some word cards out of cardboard with magnet strip glued on the back.  I asked my mom to get her magnetic letters and letter blocks for Christmas.  We played with words and with letters.  

I am not sure how long after this I found the letter of the week website, but I expanded what we were doing with some of the ideas on there.  I used her recommendations for books and poems and composers for each letter.  I made a poster and word cards (like we do now, though I have changed it up a bit).  She recommended showing the cards during the day.  I did that occasionally, but tended to forget.  I wasn't sure how I felt about that anyway.  I didn't want her memorizing the card, I wanted her to be able to sound out the words.  

A favorite game I played with her, which I learned at the Montessori goes like this (I have mentioned this on the blog before): "I hear 'mmmm' when I say 'mommy' 'moon' 'mouse'" etc. It was so exciting when the girls learned to chime in with words.

It has been so important to me to stress the sound of the letter, not the letter name.  This is definitely a recommendation for different phonics based programs.  We did it at the Montessori, it was recommended in Barbara Curtis's book, Mommy, Teach Me to Read!, it is emphasized in the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book.  It makes perfect sense.  A problem I have with the Weaver Curriculum's teaching to read instructions is her insistence on teaching the letter names first and the way she says she can't understand why people would want to rush children by teaching the sounds first.  From my experience, knowing the sounds is what is important.  The game I described above was done at the Montessori while showing the letter.  At home, with the girls, I have done it for pure phonemic awareness.  Hearing the sound.  Of course we do it while I show the letter too, but the knowledge of the sounds themselves is essential.  Being able to distinguish them by hearing them.  Then the children can see the correlation when you say the sound while showing the letter.  

On the other hand, I have seen it mentioned in Montessori materials that the sound should be stressed with out the name of the letter.  I compromise.  I do both.  I want the girls to know the sound it makes, but I also want them to know the letter name.  There has been no confusion with this method.  Amelia knows most of her letters and the sounds they make.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post, which will bring us into a time when I was being more deliberate in my teaching of the letters.

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School Time: Week 10 (Tt continued)

I have started something new with Tabitha.  After I put Amelia down for a nap, Tabitha and I come back downstairs for Reading Lesson Time.  I am using the first reader I have from the ABeka program called Fun With Pets. As Tabitha has already shown that she can read some phonetic words (from our word cards every week and from the Progressive Phonics online program) I decided to start with this book as it starts with the "at" words, moving on to the "ad" and "am" words.
I gathered our magnetic letters, our cookie sheet with a piece of computer paper, a spiral notebook (so Tabitha can have her own Reading Lesson notebook), a pencil and the ABeka reader Fun With Pets. I started out by having Tabitha tell me the sounds /a/ and /t/ while showing her the A and T magnetic letters.  Then she blended them for me.  I then went through the alphabet, having her sound out each new word formed and then writing it in her new notebook.  Then we read the beginning of the first story, "The Fat Rat."  It introduces four "sight" words: is, on, the, a.  Technically she can sound out on. The first part of the story, three sentences on two pages with 2 brightly colored pictures, introduces 8 words only.  This is all I had her read the first day.  The remainder of the story introduced the "ad" and "am" words.  We built as many of those as I could think of with the magnetic letters and she wrote them in her notebook.  The story introduced 9 new words.  We don't do this every day, but both Tabitha and Amelia have had some special school/review time with daddy this week.

Amelia and daddy working with the number clothespins from the activity table while Tabitha works on her words.

I just wish I had lower case letters.

Daddy tried a more complicated word. With a little help Tabitha worked it out.

Daddy demonstrating the word's meaning using the line from The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock about the foolish man "and the house on the sand went splat"

Tabitha writing the word.

Amelia taking her turn.  She knows the names of letters and some sounds.  Daddy thought he'd work with her.:)

She made pretty designs!

And, yes, Hannah had some floor time too.

Last week I shared the beginning of a project.  This week the girls finished the project.

I stapled the tubes that the girls painted last week into the shape of a T.

The girls crumpled up tissue paper squares

and glued them onto their letter T's

She was excited that she was finished.

I was trying to think of something new to do with our picture cards.  We still read the words and match the pictures and play the game to match the picture to the word with out looking at the picture side first.  This week we played "Which one is missing?"  I laid out three cards at a time, pointed at each saying the word, then had the girls close their eyes.  I told them not to peek and took one away.  Tabitha was able to figure it out quite easily.  Amelia copied her most of the time.  In fact, the second day we did this activity, Tabitha wanted me to add cards.  She did okay with 4, struggled a bit with 5 and 6.  Granted, even I had to think really hard to figure out the missing card when there were 6.  Tabitha insisted I had to close my eyes so she could take one away.  In fact, I just remembered I need to let Amelia have a turn quizzing me.  

I was so pleased a couple of days ago when Tabitha and Amelia started playing the game by themselves, Tabitha quizzing Amelia.  It's the activities that they initiate themselves that I know were a success.

I also realized that "touchdown" starts with the letter T.  I made a Touchdown File Folder Game

The blue blob is supposed to be a helmet and represents the defense.

The football represents the offense.

The children take turns spinning the spinner (from Chutes and Ladders).  The person with the football goes first and the first spin is the kickoff spin.  The football gets placed on the number spun.  Then they take turns spinning and moving the number of  yard lines indicated by their spin.  The person with the helmet has to try to stop the football by landing on the same yard line with an exact spin.  If the football gets to the goal line or beyond they get a touchdown.  If the helmet passes the football that person gets to go backwards to try to catch the football on the next turn.  Each time one of the girls got a touchdown they got a penny.  I was going to turn it into a coin exchange lesson, but Amelia got tired of the game after just a few rounds (it doesn't take that long to get a touchdown because you don't need to get an exact count, but she was just a little too young for it I guess.)  Tabitha didn't get tired of it, so daddy and I took turns playing with her.

The girls have been using their sign language quite a bit lately.  In fact, I found another cute educational signing video for them to watch besides Signing Time.  The girls have been watching Sign-A-Lot: ABC Games.  A group of kids go to Sign a Lot and meet up with their adult friend.  In this episode (the only one our library system has) it is game day.  The children play a game going through the alphabet and signing a word for each letter, having to remember each word that came before.  There were quite a few games and the girls really seemed to enjoy this DVD.  With the older children being featured I thought they wouldn't be as interested.  I really liked that the signs they used were inserted naturally as the children conversed just like I do at home.  I wouldn't say this DVD would be recommended for a beginner, Signing Time is still great for beginners because they do repeat each sign they are trying to teach.  But the girls requested this DVD this time, we had watching it a few weeks ago, and seem to enjoy it.

Here is Amelia signing cat:

And Tabitha trying to teach Hannah butterfly:

We have started our T craft with a book tie-in.  I will share it next week.  We are spending a third week on T seeing as I decided we would make lots of turkeys next week.  So stay tuned for those as well.  

Here are some pictures of some Tiny Tot time:

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Patricia over at My Tot Learning Time has started a new linky celebrating the special time our children spend with their daddies.  

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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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