Teaching Reading: I Happened Upon Some Tricks

Jonathan is in Year 2 for school and is reading a variety of readers for reading practice. His favorites to read are stories like Frog and Toad and Mouse Soup. He also reads a little out of one schoolbook each day, the line he will write for his copywork (as well as the rest of the sentence in which the line is contained), and any math instructions.

Right now in the rotation of main reading selections, he is in the Delightful Reader . He's reading the extra practice sentences which contain word-family words that come from the main words he learned during lesson time the previous two years when he mastered Rain, The Dogs and the Fox, etc. He finds the disjointedness of the practice sentences unsatisfactory since the contents of the sentences are often separate from one another instead of making story. To solve this problem, I began to give him a short background story before he read each sentence, explaining any words along the way that might be unfamiliar to him. So for a sentence like

"Use this to hook the squid." 

I ask him if he's ever seen a picture of a squid and to describe it for me. Then I might tell him that a father is out in a big boat teaching his teenage son how to catch deepwater fish (I have no idea if squid is a deep water animal or if you can catch it with a hook, but Jonathan will be sure to ask such questions and we can look up really interesting q's later if he wants to). Then I say, "As the father is teaching his son, he gives him these words of instruction....." 

And then Jonathan happily reads the sentence. This does not take as much time as you might think, since the background info can be as silly or involved as I want to make it, and it makes the time enjoyable for both of us. 

Phoebe is doing Kindergarten work this year. She's been an interesting child, she has. She can be fairly hyper, and if she happens to decide she doesn't want to do school that day, she's a tiny bit of struggle to work with. There are several ways we work with her attitude (which I won't get into here), but for reading, I happened upon a way to help her pay attention to the sounds in the word and put them together. She struggles with wanting to look at me to see what I will say or look around and just guess. 

Right now we're working through the section in Delightful Reading with short vowel words, long vowel words, and a few blends. She also sounds out her copywork words before copying them. What I discovered to be helpful was using a pointer (a pencil suffices or we might make a special pretty one so as to be fancy). I have her point to each sound while I say the sound. Then I take the pointer and point to each sound while she says the sound. Then she can take the pointer and slide it across the word to blend the sounds together. I think the action and using an extra device makes her have to look at the word and also gives her hands something to do while looking. 

As teachers and parents, you all realize how tough some problems can be to figure out. Your child is stuck, and you can't find a way to help them get past the issue. Sometimes you happen upon a solution seemingly out of the blue. At these times I thank God. He made our brains to figure out stuff like this, and I think He also cares enough to send us ideas if we need them. No worries. If He takes care of the birds of the air, our teaching issues can be unraveled with His help as well. 

Handling Clay

Pottery has to be the most calming yet fulfilling handicraft I've dealt with.  We worked with clay once a week, completing one project at each sit-down session.  I first made a phone call to our local studio (Wild Ginger Studios) to ask questions about firing and handling finished clay.  I hadn't realized our clay would need to be fired in a kiln and not in our oven.  But the studio does outside firings and the owner gave great advice about how to make and transport our pieces.

The kids loved the squishing and molding.  Jonathan (7) and Phoebe (5) needed more help shaping their pieces.  Some of their pieces turned out better than their mother's though!  You have to work fast and keep clay covered with plastic or the clay will dry out (a few squirts from the water bottle returns moisture).  We learned three techniques: pinch pot, coil pot, and slab pots.  It felt so professional to use the tools.  Elizabeth had a special artsy outfit she would wear for each session. 

There is a definite mess to clean up at the end!  

                                    

But the clay wipes up easily.  The tools get washed and everything put back into a box.  The whole process makes me happy; I may have discovered a new fulfilling interest.  Maybe it takes me back to my childhood days of playing in the mud.  At any rate, this has been a pleasant experience for the whole family.  We plan to continue the projects in the kit with the upcoming school year.  I'm on the search for more clay nearby (shipping about doubles the price).   Painting and firing our pots come next.  

Go to A Search for Pottery

Handling Clay

Go to A Plethora of Pots

A Search for Pottery

Handicrafts are a fun party of a Charlotte Mason education.  I love needlework, wood and paper crafts, painting....  But children need help learning a useful skill, and teaching three school-aged kids separate crafts was getting to be too much.  So I went on a quest for a handicraft we could do together as a family.  

Pottery was on the forefront of my mind.  It's earthy and rustic and kids love playing with clay.  The price for classes for all of us was too steep (about $450, although I thought about asking if they could do a family class for less).  I'm definitely interested in wheel work for myself at some point.  The kids aren't old enough for that yet (I believe she said they needed to be 13 or older).  But I did find a place in Texas that sells pottery kits with clay and tools included: Heritage Ministries' Homesteading Crafts.  The kit cost $30 with enough clay for one person to do 9 projects.  Shipping came out to $30 also, but I was willing to pay $60 for this kit.

I figured we'd use less clay by making smaller projects and just make it through a few to see how we liked it.  If we wanted to continue, I could purchase more clay.  After a little confusion with the company (which a manager cleared up with a phone call), I found that shipping was only $15 and the other $15 was refunded to my credit card.  So total cost for this pottery kit was $45.

The tools are real and sharp ~ definitely for older kids with parental supervision.  My 5, 7, and 10 year olds handled them fine with my direction.  We only did pottery when the baby was napping.  There are a couple of other supplies we needed to gather: water bottle, plastic, rolling pin, etc.  And our dining table handled fine as a work surface.

So our search for a family handicraft that all (including Mom) would enjoy was successful.  More on creating our pots in the next two posts.

A Search for Pottery

Go to Handling Clay

Go to A Plethora of Pots

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 1

Phoebe is in the pre-reading stage of learning to read right now. (Simply Charlotte Mason has excellent articles on the different stages of reading that you can find here.) I've been using some ideas from Ruth Beechick's "A Home Start in Reading" along with CM suggestions from Delightful Reading to add activities as we learn sounds and word build. She just turned 6 and we consider this school year to be preschool. She's not overly interested in a lot of seat work (read "She will hardly sit still!"), so we keep lessons short.

We've spent this school year learning letter sounds with books and songs and wooden alphabet letters, puzzles, large wall cards...... anything I could find in our home that has the alphabet. She was very interested in her name and learned those 5 letters easily. We also drew the letters in the air and in a pan of sand (grits for us, actually) ala CM.

We then moved on to concentrating on a few consonants and vowels. Our list is a little longer than it should have been: M, P, Z, A, B, S, K, D L, I, J, N, T. ~Phoebe named things that began with the letter. ~I would point to 3 or 4 sounds and have her repeat them after me. ~Sometimes I would make a mistake on purpose to see she'd catch me. ~We used a children's dictionary for some sounds. She would look all through the pictures and say the words out loud. ~There are a few more ideas also in "Home Start in Reading". We didn't do more than one sound at a time.

It makes sense that you don't need to learn all the sounds or letter names at the beginning of this reading journey. You can teach a few and let your child begin to blend words, so she can feel the excitement of reading words on her own effort. Next time I'll share what we're working on for word-building during our last 12 weeks of school.

See Part 2,  Part 3,  Part 4, and Conclusion

Spanish and Latin Resources

The ideal way of learning a foreign language would be to have a native speaker live with us (or maybe just come to our home several hours a week) or to live in the culture of the language we are learning. After all, our kids seem to be learning English pretty well living in America.

But I haven't found those two ideals working out so far. What we have tried follows:

Usborne First 100 Words in Spanish (click title for Amazon)~ This book was given to us. I don't know if I would have bought it on my own, but it has been nice for the younger kids. They like to look at the pictures, and they hear what some common Spanish words sound like (helpful pronunciation guide in the back).

Play and Learn Spanish ~ another ideal here would be for mom to learn the conversations & songs and apply them to every day life. That just never materialized. So the 1st-4th grade kids listen to one section once a week. I read the English part first. Then any readers in the group read the Spanish part while listening to the CD. They listen through the section twice. The songs are fun and catchy ~ "Sol Solecito" is a favorite. The kids go through this book several years in a row. (click book cover for Amazon)

Pimsleur Spanish was not a hit with the one child who has used it. One of her biggest hangups was the overuse of the word 'beer' (I wasn't as familiar with this edition as I should have been!). It was expensive for how much Elizabeth loathed it. I might try it again when she's older. (click image for Amazon)

A local co-op Spanish class thankfully brought Elizabeth back around to enjoying Spanish (God knows what we need and provides!). I will hopefully be able to utilize classes periodically.

Salsa was a recent discovery that all the kids enjoy (preschooler, 1st and 4th graders). They are Muppet-like shows that are entirely in Spanish. I read the English synopsis first, and then they just watch an episode once a week. ~ http://www.gpb.org/salsa/term/episode

The 4th grader and I are also reading short children's books in Spanish and figuring out translation as we go. I'd love to figure out a way for the kids to use what they are learning. That may be a change we figure out for next year.

And this was a year of starting Latin. For ease of use and accessibility, quick feedback from the instructor and web management, enjoyment, and actual learning, (price isn't bad either), I highly recommend Visual Latin. We are going through it pretty slowly, but Elizabeth likes to randomly translate words into Latin so I know it's working and she's enjoying it. She's also reading a Latin children's book and just received a Latin New Testament. Even though she doesn't understand everything she's reading, the VL instructor (Dwane!) recommended this approach. And I just realized he posted my question and his answer on his blog! How cool is that: Visual Latin.

* As an affiliate of Visual Latin, I receive a percentage of all sales made via click-through links provided on this website.

Welcome!

I'm excited to begin this new blog to share Charlotte Mason with you by way of our family's educational experiences and resources.

The CM road for homeschooling continually inspires me to keep teaching. I look forward to the next year, the new books we will read. I look behind with satisfaction at the depth of accomplishment (while still learning how to change and do better! We make several kinds of changes every year ~ poor oldest child really bears the brunt of forging our school path). I watch my children at present, still learning the habit of sweet, even temper (as opposed to complaining ~ they are normal children after all) and, sometimes despite themselves, connecting with books and artists and the physical world ~ connecting with their Creator.

I feel a kinship with Miss Mason and those who use her methods. It's a great journey to be on.

Charlotte Mason voices ideas that are applicable even beyond homeschooling, and I'm glad to share part of the journey with you.

If you're fuzzy on the details of who Charlotte Mason is, these links give helpful synopses:

Simply Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Online

Childlight USA

Ambleside Schools International