About two weeks ago I was giving my son a bath when I decided to try and put the foam letters we have in the bottom of a large cup so that they spelled a simple CVC (consonant vowel consonant) word. It was great! He sounded out the letters and was able to read words, consistently! He really liked the cheering we did (although I wonder if that means I am putting an external focus of achievement on him rather than having him discover the fun of reading himself?).
Since that time we do that game every bathtime. I have found that it has not always been transferable to other reading contexts. For example, I have been able to get him to do the reading cards that I have mentioned before (in fact yesterday he got through the first batch perfectly), but he is not always interested. When reading books, he often just wants to guess what the word is supposed to be by looking at the pictures rather than looking at the letters. Or, he will look at the letters, sound them out, and then give a different word that is almost correct but is obviously a guess based on the context of the story.
I've also noticed he still gets lower case 'b' and 'd' mixed up, so there is definitely a need to keep reviewing the alphabet until it is second nature. Likewise, he sometimes forgets the 'soft' sounds of the letters 'e' and 'i', giving the soft 'a' sound instead.
So, although I am happy and excited that he understands the method of reading, I'm more aware that things don't just suddenly accelerate away and take care of themselves. We still have a long way to go.
Incidentally, my sister has been having a lot of success teaching reading to her son with this programmatic textbook. I can't remember the title but it looked good. When I have more time to see them again I will write about that too.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
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