4KookieKids Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 My 3 yo is getting very pushy about wanting reading lessons like big bro (5 yo). Goes and get his first HOP booklet and sits down and wants to go through it. I've tried starting it with her, but there's only so many times we can play match-the-letter sounds on the alphabet page (she definitely knows her sounds! :P) and she just doesn't seem ready to go on the first page of "reading." She can make the sound when I point to letters, and she can say-it-fast when I sound out a word slowly, but she doesn't seem to get the idea of putting sounds together on her own yet. So then I tried avoidance methods: distracting her with other activities/books/toys, but she's a very determined little thing. Please give me some ideas of what to do! I feel bad saying it (I don't want anyone to think I'm lazy or a bad parent), but I think I'm going to go crazy if we have to keep doing letter sounds (I'd rather do nothing than keep repeating these multiple times a day when she clearly gets them). She loves workbooks, but still needs 1-1 while doing them to help her know what to do, and I can only do that so much in a day either. She loves to play games, dress up, art, stamps, wrestle, play outside, etc. and we do plenty of that. But I don't know how to get her to move past this insistence on reading lessons (big bro only does them 5 minutes a day anyway!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wendyroo Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 I am doing the Explode the Code primers with my 3 year old. We are on book A and It is a gentle mix of phonemic awareness, visual discrimination, fine motor practice, beginning letter formation and a bit of coloring. The good thing about the workbooks is that they are very repetitive. Not in a bad way, but just the activities are very predictable and intuitive. DS is able to do the pages with only minimal guidance. My DS is at the same stage as your daughter (knows his letter sounds, but isn't ready to blend yet) and I'm guessing that by the time he finishes all three primers that he will be developmentally ready to start OPGTR and Explode the Code 1. It certainly doesn't hurt that he chooses to watch the Leap Frog Talking Words Factory show a couple times a week. Wendy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DhanyaCali Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 My son as well took foreeeeeeeeeeeeever between learning letter sounds (age 3) and putting them together. We finished ETC primers last year and he just Was. Not. Ready. to go any further so I backed off for the summer and just last month (age 4.5) he started reading CVCs now we are on a roll. I guess that's not helpful for a little one adamant about school huh. Maybe you could just do letters a couple times a week and then give her "skills" workbooks (kumon, developing early learning, etc other fun ones) the rest of the time? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 How about you indulge her and keep doing the same lessons over and over? Is she happy with those lessons you're doing or does she want more? You are saying she's not ready to do more. That's ok. As long as she's happy doing her "reading lesson" which is the same thing over and over, isn't that ok? Can you print off coloring sheets or activity sheets from online for her to do? If it were I, I'd look at it like how I used to play school when I was 9. My friend and I would take turns being the teacher and assign work to the student. It was always easy work. The point wasn't the work, it was the game of playing school. I'd treat it like that--like you two are playing a game. If she actually picks up on the sounds better, great. If not, no biggie. It's all just game for now. When she's ready to move on, then you move on in the game to something meatier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4KookieKids Posted November 12, 2014 Author Share Posted November 12, 2014 How about you indulge her and keep doing the same lessons over and over? Is she happy with those lessons you're doing or does she want more? Lol. Yes, she will sit there with me with the sheet of letters in front of her and say the sounds while matching (e.g., point to A and say "ah" and then she'll find the lowercase a and say "ah"... repeat with the next letter, which is a lowercase m or something.... say "mmm" and match it to the M). It's just ME that's bored with it. :) Especially with the 5 yo and 1 yo running around and me pregnant. ;) I was just hoping to get out of doing the same thing every day, I think! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisa in the UP of MI Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Maybe you could cover the same work with games instead? That way it (hopefully) wouldn't be so boring for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Lol. Yes, she will sit there with me with the sheet of letters in front of her and say the sounds while matching (e.g., point to A and say "ah" and then she'll find the lowercase a and say "ah"... repeat with the next letter, which is a lowercase m or something.... say "mmm" and match it to the M). It's just ME that's bored with it. :) Especially with the 5 yo and 1 yo running around and me pregnant. ;) I was just hoping to get out of doing the same thing every day, I think! I understand! (The part about how bored you are.) I used to get so tired and bored when doing read alouds to the kids of the same book over and over and over that I would start to fall asleep and my words would slur. My little guys would look at me puzzled about why I was talking so funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 I would suggest games as well, but if she wants something school-y I'd just print out a gazillion letter worksheets and simple word worksheets and call it a day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura W. Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 I tried to drill sounds in a variety of ways when I had a dc stuck at that stage - Alphabet Bingo, Go Fish (alphabet version), etc. Another thing you can work on is phonemic awareness with her. What is the first sound you hear, the middle sound, the last sound, etc. A good resource is Phonemic Awareness in Young Children. It has a variety of activities which develop phonemic awareness, and a suggested schedule for doing them in K and 1st grades. You could use the schedule if you wanted, but slow it down. The activities tend to be fun and engaging. Anyway, that might give you some variety while still doing the lessons your dd wants and is able to do. Blessings, Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 You don't need worksheets or anything. You can begin teaching her Spalding phonograms by teaching her to "write" the letters with her fingers, in the air, in sand, in chocolate pudding. :-) And you teach her the proper directions and whatnot---circles begin at 2 on the clock and go around to 9 and down to 6 and up to 2, and so on. After "lessons" give her a pencil and a piece of paper, or a piece of chalk and a little slate, and let her write them herself. Children learned to read for thousands of years before there was such a thing as worksheets. I'd be reluctant to condition her to expecting "school" to always consist of worksheets. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momofeat Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 She's at a great age to do phonemic awareness games. I don't have time to look for you right now, but you'll probably find something if you google that term. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Btervet Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Could you have her teach her dolls or stuffed animals? If she can use a computer you could let her do her lesson on starfall.com, it has really great phonics activities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Ditto on the phenomic awareness games. If you need some scripts to work from, the k12 phonics teacher's manual is a great start. I'd also get some phonics tiles (aas or k12 phonics kit) and let her "build" words. You will be directing her, but it feels "real". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacbeaumont Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 On the topic of phonemic awareness, how about moving specifically toward recognizing beginning sounds of words? Just around the house and in everyday conversation and than slowly add activities to your 'reading' lesson. On Themeasuredmom.com she has some fun printables where you match letters to pictures. (ie. picture of a dog, match the letter d). Another games she calls blackout bingo is just a sheet of pictures and when you shout out a letter and/or sound you find the pictures that match. http://www.themeasuredmom.com/beginning-sounds-activities/. After watching Leapfrog Letter Factory with my son he knew all his sounds and we just moved on to recognizing beginning sounds. "Oh, look a garbage can , guh,guh,guh, what letter is that? Than after that is too easy don't even repeat the beginning sound, just repeat the word. "Garbage, garbage,garbage, hmmm what letter sound is that start with?" Very important skill when they want to start writing words by themselves while journaling/colouring. I have been working with my son on blending since 3 1/2 and it is finally just clicking at 4. I just keep the activities going and reading BOB books and modelling the blending with him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacbeaumont Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Oh! One game he loved is when I put paper on the ground with different letters on each one and we went around the house looking for things that begin with that letter. We would put the items on the letter sheet they belonged to. Super fun, but took a long time to clean up. :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wendyroo Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Both my older kids love the game, "I'm thinking of an animal whose name starts with tie and ends with ger. What is it?" While on walks or in the car they will play it for as long as I can come up with different animals. My 5 year old is reading Frog and Toad books, but still acts like he has solved a complicated riddle when he combines /f/ and /ish/ to discover I am thinking of a fish. Sometimes we play it the opposite way: "I'm thinking of the FIRST part of the word cupcake. What is the first part? What is the last part?" Sometimes we do rhyming riddles. "I'm thinking of something you play with in the winter that rhymes with head." My three year old can't yet rhyme, so for now he just throws out random guesses - A SNOWMAN!! Wendy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 FREE STUFF How to Teach Your Preschooler to Read by Samuel Blumenfeld http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/blumnfeld_home_primer.pdf Hoenshel’s Language Lessons and Elementary Grammar 1899: pg. 11-20 https://archive.org/details/hoenshelslangua00hoengoog McGuffey’s Eclectic Primer 1909 https://archive.org/details/mcguffeyseclecti00mcgu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4KookieKids Posted November 17, 2014 Author Share Posted November 17, 2014 Both my older kids love the game, "I'm thinking of an animal whose name starts with tie and ends with ger. What is it?" While on walks or in the car they will play it for as long as I can come up with different animals. My 5 year old is reading Frog and Toad books, but still acts like he has solved a complicated riddle when he combines /f/ and /ish/ to discover I am thinking of a fish. Sometimes we play it the opposite way: "I'm thinking of the FIRST part of the word cupcake. What is the first part? What is the last part?" Sometimes we do rhyming riddles. "I'm thinking of something you play with in the winter that rhymes with head." My three year old can't yet rhyme, so for now he just throws out random guesses - A SNOWMAN!! Wendy I tried these tonight at dinner and my 5 yo had lots of fun, but my poor 3 yo definitely needs some practice! I asked her what animal starts with "c" and ends with "at", and she thought for a moment and then shouted "elephant!" My hubby and I just started laughing, while my 5 yo shouted, "no, it's CAT!". It was a pretty good time. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwik Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 Do you do other school stuff or one on one stuff with him? Maybe he just wants more of your time and something else would be just as good? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaquitita Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Play how many things can we name that start with R, B, etc. How many words can we make up to rhyme with cat? With pickle, etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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