I've always been a little jealous of those kids who learn to read all by themselves. By just being read to by thier parents, and maybe by the parents pointing to words as they read. But I have successfully taight one child to read. He was a little bit reluctant, still is actually, he's probably right on grade level right now....maybe a little above. And we are starting the journey a second time with Cale. He's been reading CVC words and a handful of sight words for close to a year. Bob Books for maybe 6 months. He got a little stuck when he went from just reading words to putting them together in sentences, especially if there was more than one sentence on a page.
He's really taken off lately though. He's really taken to the word cards I have made. I have 3 sets-
pink: CVC words
blue: short vowel words with 2-3 letter blends at the beginning or end of the word
green: Most of the other phonorgrams...
They are simple...match the word with the picture. And it was interactive enough to keep his hands busy. I have other ideas for extensions using the cards, but we haven't gotten there yet.
And to get over his problems with multiple sentences. I wrote a few corny short 1 page stories. 1 picture at the top and a lot of repetition in the words. It helped SO much. He's going through all of our readers. Finished our set of BOB Books, gone through the MCP readers (set 1), and some of the SSRW (neither of us really like these). Currently he likes the Pond Pals series, which were the ones my oldest really took to and really helped master the whole 'silent e' concept. And I am so glad he is excited and wants to read. He picked up Big Pig on a Dig yesterday at the library, he's been trying so hard to read it all by himself. He doesn't want help. Watching him I think we need to spend a little extra time on sight/instant words. I'll have to let him play Reader Rabbit's Reading somemore, and maybe Starfall or Literactive during our week off. And maybe rewrite our BINGO boards to reflect thier current levels.
And something I love to see....my oldest is currently curled up on the couch with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We are almost at the end and I've caught him flipping through numerous times in the past few days. He is skimming around reading random parts- especially the bold, all caps, yelling text. Now I just need a series or chapter books as exciting as Harry Potter that is on a 2nd-3rd grade level, so he may actually read books like those on his own!
I am working on our 3rd reader... Alicia is 6, and starting 1st grade... She's doing OK... Seems like it gets harder with each child. I wonder why?
ReplyDeleteYour cards look great!
ReplyDeleteHave you tried the Magic Tree House books for your son? My son has always liked those...not sure if they are of the same caliber as Harry though...?
Reading. Still struggling here, although she is really doing great for all purposes that school would look at. She can do it. She likes it ok, and she understands all the rules. Now it is just getting her to actually do it.
ReplyDeleteYour cards look AWESOME! I bragged about your icecream phonics when Cyan was first learning... now I have another reason to brag on you. ;) I will be printing those out tomorrow for Cyan to play with on cardstock. Are the green ones up there? I didn't see them.
Magic Tree House were ones that Alex got through as well. He loved them. We still have all of them for when Cyan is at this level. It should be later this year at this rate... but who knows? It could be next week. I would check out a few from the library and see how Ry likes them.
BTW, would you email me your addy again for Cyan to penpal Rylan? BlueRoseMama@hotmail.com. We are starting up writing letter friday again, and I would still love for them to write.
Ok... babbly me.
Love Val