Teaching Reading: Conclusion

Since I've spent so much time telling about Phoebe's reading progress, I thought I'd report on my older two also.

Elizabeth is heading into 5th grade.  We don't do reading instruction anymore, but I do have her read out loud to me from different school books or the Bible each day.  There are a number of hard words that she mispronounces because so much of her reading is done silently to herself.  So I'm able to help her with correct pronunciation.  (And many times I have to look up a word to figure it out myself!)  She's able to practice clear, distinct reading also when reading aloud.

Jonathan finished Delightful Reading last year; so this first grade year has been about lots of reading practice.  He read "The Primer" by Harriette Treadwell (free to read online).  He is working his way through the extra sentences in the "Delightful Reader" ( we didn't do all the extra sentences last year).  And he is reading "Frog and Toad Together."  I alternate readers at the end of each chapter.  He also reads his copywork each day; he's working through "Hymns in Prose" right now.  And my plan is to use the "Hymns in Prose" reader with him next year.  It has great uplifting content with challenging words.

Jonathan is really catching on to the various phonics rules as he reads.  He simply picks up on them as I explain the way a certain sound works.  His personality doesn't like any exceptions or rules that don't make sense to him.  (Why does kn say n?  Why couldn't they just put an n?!)  I know he'll enjoy etymology when he gets older ~ I was thrilled to have an etymology course in high school because it explained so much about the history of words.

All the kids are progressing in reading.  Not all at the same rate.  And it sometimes feels slow to me.  But they learn a little each day and it all builds up to make a nice visible foundation when we look back on the year.

See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

Teaching Reading to Our Third: Part 4

I thought it might be helpful to break it down a little more if you are interested in using these simple plans.  You'll work on the sentence exercises for several weeks, so the sounds and words are not all to be learned in one day.  These are not broken down into daily lessons, but rather into sentence "chunks".  I'll give the sounds and words focused on for each of the 6 sentences from the previous post:

For the first sentence: Pam is tan.

1. Learn and/or review sounds p, a, m, i, s, t, and n. 

2. Learn and/or review words am, Sam, Pam, spam, is, an, man, pan, span, and tan.

3. Make old (if practice is needed) or new words using alphabet letters.

4. Show the word card and let your child copy it into word notebook.

5. Do a word or sound activity.

6. Once words are well-known, make a sentence with word cards.

For the second sentence: Tim spit in a pit.

1. Learn and/or review sounds s, i, t, p, m, n, and long a.
2. Learn and/or review words it, spit, pit, sit, Tim, in, sin, tin, pin, spin, and a.
3. Make old (if practice is needed) or new words using alphabet letters.
4. Show the word card and let your child copy it into word notebook.

5. Do a word or sound activity.

6. Once words are well-known, make a sentence with word cards.

For the third sentence: Sam is a man.

1. Learn and/or review sounds s, a, m, i, long a, and n.

2. Learn and/ or review words sap, map, nap, tap, apt, and imp. (These words aren't used in any of the sentences, and since the child has learned all words related to Sam, is, a, man, this is a good place to learn these words.)

3. Make old (if practice is needed) or new words using alphabet letters.

4. Show the word card and let your child copy it into word notebook.

5. Do a word or sound activity.

6. Once words are well-known, make a sentence with word cards.

For the fourth sentence: Sit on the mat.

1. Learn and/or review sounds s, i, t, n, a, m, and introduce short o.

2. Learn and/or review words on, at, pat, sat, mat, spat.

3. Make old (if practice is needed) or new words using alphabet letters.

4. Show the word card and let your child copy it into word notebook.

5. Do a word or sound activity.

6. Once words are well-known, make a sentence with word cards.

For the fifth sentence: An ant sat in a pan.

1. Learn and/or review sounds a, n, t, s, i, and p.

2. Learn and/or review the word ant and at and an words if needed.

3. Make old (if practice is needed) or new words using alphabet letters.

4. Show the word card and let your child copy it into word notebook.

5. Do a word or sound activity.

6. Once words are well-known, make a sentence with word cards.

For the sixth sentence: Tim sips tea.

1. Learn and/or review sounds t, i, m, s, p and introduce ea as having a long e sound.

2. Learn and/or review words sip, tip, tea, sips.

3. Make old (if practice is needed) or new words using alphabet letters.

4. Show the word card and let your child copy it into word notebook.

5. Do a word or sound activity.

6. Once words are well-known, make a sentence with word cards.

                               Our Third

See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Conclusion

Teaching Reading to Our Third: Part 3

Now that we have some simple word-building under our belt, I plan to add several steps: writing words in her word notebook, sound/word activities, and, once she is very familiar with some words, sentence-making.

I've selected 20 words from the list in the previous post and written them on cards. After Phoebe makes a word with letters, I show her the card and she copies the word into her word notebook. The Delightful Reading kit includes a word notebook, but any blank notebook will do.

Activities can include reading a word card while jumping up or down stairs with each word. I have her go back a step if she gets the word wrong; we go through the small pile of words over again until she gets to the bottom of the stairs. You can read a word aloud and let your child find the word among a couple of other word cards. You can hide the familiar letters around the room and let your child find them to put them together to make words. Are there other activities your child enjoys during pre-reading lessons? I'd love to hear more ideas to keep my active girl on task. The movement really does help her concentrate.

Once she is very familiar with a few chosen words, I'll have her pick up the words I tell her and lay them in a row so that she may then read a sentence.

The sentences I chose are:

~ Pam is tan.

~ Tim spit in a pit.

~ Sam is a man.

~ Sit on a mat.

~ An ant sat in a pan.

~ Tim sips tea.

(A couple new words are added to help make cogent sentences.)

So a day's lesson might look like:

1. Review sounds from chalk board.

2. Review words from previous lesson using word notebook or word cards.

3. Make old (if practice is needed) or new words using alphabet letters.

4. Show the word card and let your child copy it into word notebook.

5. Do a word or sound activity.

6. Once words are well-known, make a sentence with word cards.

This will be great practice for continued word-building with Delightful Reading next year. And then we'll be heading into "real" reading lessons!

Next post will show lessons broken down even more.

See Part 1,  Part 2,  Part 4, and Conclusion