A variety of things

I find myself reading and re-reading my education books all the time. Skimming for ideas, reminding myself how to teach a certain concept, etc. I received a book called, “Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.”  I had heard a lot of praise for this book, but I was skeptical. I read the intro or the How-To teacher’s section and was a little annoyed.  Disagreed with some, but agreed with some things as well. Among many things the author discouraged, the author discouraged Language Learning Experience for teaching reading. WHAT?!?!  This is basically the educational jargon for the Morning Message thing I do with Isaac. (Which has been very successful for him.) I think what the author failed to point out is---You don’t just use one thing in teaching a child to read. I don’t think you can take a whole language approach 24/7. You have to mix it up. So yes, using the LLE alone would not be a good thing. A child needs phonics instruction as well. However, phonics instruction alone could be potentially detrimental as well. A child can be so hung up on “decoding” that they’ve missed the comprehension.

So the book said that you could use their method with as young as bright 3.5 year olds. Naturally, I felt my son fit in this category (haha) so I thought I'd give it a go. I followed their method exactly. Isaac was extremely bored and irritable with it. Maybe he thought it was too easy. Maybe he needed something hands on. I felt there were some good points to the book about sounding out the letters slowly and properly and then "Saying it fast." So I decided to take another approach but using the same method. Isaac likes to put his magnetic letters on his board and make words, so I told him to make a few words he knew. He spelled Isaac, no, yes, and Pa. Next, I told him that we would make some new words. So I put a-t up and modeled sounding out the a then t, and then saying it fast. I asked him to slowly sound those two letters out and then asked him to say the sounds together fast. He immediately said, "at." So I added "m" to the front of "at." We sounded out all three sounds again, and then 'say it fast.' "Mat!" he said. We continued with bat, rat, hat, other -at word families. So the method of the book works, but I don't think I will follow their dictations exactly. Isaac definitely learns better with a little bit of hands-on.

A little bit of geography comes in the form of the Bible maps and USA puzzles. We talk about the country we live in and its name. We talk about various states.

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Isaac loves to point out Texas, because that is where his Pa and Granna live.

The first puzzle was a little too easy, so Isaac began tackling the individual state one shown here. Smaller pieces and each state is a piece, not a cluster of states as in the last puzzle. He can now do this puzzle on his own! He loves it, and he's starting to learn a few of the states. The easily recognizable ones--TX, CA, OK, FL.

What would preschool be without a doctor kit? Haha...he loves to play doctor with me.

He loves to play "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" too. He started individually counting the balls and separating them out rather than trying to count them in a big pile and recounting the same ones over and over. Another developmental milestone. Small, but way cool for Mommy.