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