On the Road to Reading!

It is just amazing how much the Morning Message really helps Isaac. He is learning so many new words. Learning that letters make words, words make sentences, sentences have periods, capitalization. Best of all he is learning in context. He helps come up with the sentence that is always about something going on in our life right now.

As said before, I think, I have always believed that instruction should be broad, use a variety of techniques. I tend to lean more towards natural settings and letting Isaac take the lead, but there is a time and place for drills sometimes, too. So I got out the Hooked on Phonics stuff that was given to me. Isaac was excited. I guess he was just thrilled with the cuteness of the box with the little books, flash cards, cds and stickers...I don't know. But he listened to the cd and used the cards which drilled him on his sounds---got bored with that pretty quickly. (too easy) And then together, we just went through the small word families -an -at -ig. And then read the short stories with those words in them. He did so great! I was excited to see him reading! True, he is doing alot of memorizing right now rather than sounding out-reading, but that is totally normal. Any exposure I can give him is great, and he'll pick up on the rest as he gets older. I'm hoping by then, he may have developed his own techniques for figuring out a word. Right now I can see he is mainly using pictures, context, and sometimes beginning sounds to figure out a word. He is starting to figure out those word families though, and I think we are going to start doing alot more with that. For some reason he really got  the -ig family. The p's, d's, and b's sometimes thrown him off, but again, normal.  I think we'll start a word wall in his room.

I really need to start emphasizing some other subjects, but he is really so drawn to the alphabet and reading right now, that I can't see doing anything else while he is so into it!

For those of you that have encouraged me in this homeschooling endeavor, thank you! Please keep it up! There are times when I'm like, "I can do this. I can do this. I can do this." and then other times where, "I'm scared. What about as the kids get older? What about when I have more kids? What about this...what about that..." Anyway, I need all the help and encouragement I can get!