Thank you so much, you three! I appreciate this perspective greatly. I'm going to try to give xtramath a try for review once we've covered the material and done some drilling on our own. I'll also consider the added "reward," Lucy, thanks 😆!

Hi all, I’m curious if anyone has any experiences or thoughts around using apps for mastery of math facts, including any specific app recommendations. Math fact mastery seems like something that would be perfectly suited for apps, and I’m aware of some options like xtramath, but it’s not something I see discussed with any regularity so I’m eager to hear any perspectives before I enter the thicket, pick an app, and take the plunge. Thanks in advance for any insights!

I am so appreciative of all of your responses, with a special thanks to @Rosie_0801 and @HomeAgain for providing such detailed roadmaps for me to consider. It is tremendously relieving to get the sense that it is worthwhile to invest significantly in play-based, pre-writing strength and skills building, as well as to get the sense that the journey to final form is likely to be a long and circuitous one where I can spend a lot of time sitting in patience before hitting the panic button. I'm also glad to hear that having handwriting lag reading is not a red flag! Thank you, again, everyone, for the wonderful advice and concrete ideas. All of this is going to enormously influence what I do going forward. This community is great!

Hello all! Thank you so much in advance for any insight! I started teaching reading to my DS3 (nearly 4) when he was 2, and thanks to his interest and the power of incremental progress over long time spans, he's become quite a proficient reader for his age. He can pick up most K-2 kids literature (e.g. Frog and Toad) anew and read it aloud almost without error, for lack of better way to relay where he's at on his reading journey. I, however, made the probably regrettable decision not to work with him on handwriting at the same time as his reading, and I'm increasingly nervous about where his handwriting will end up. Part of my anxiety probably stems from my own experience: despite constant remediation throughout school, chiding from instructors, and endless hand exercises, my handwriting never came to look better than a struggling first grader's. But I've also just found myself casting around in uncertainty about how to handle his handwriting at this juncture (very young but far behind his reading skills), bouncing between materials and approaches as I've started working with him on it--trying then dropping pencil grips, using materials that had different stroke orders, bouncing between being vigilant and lax with respect to grip, trying and then dropping hand-over-hand, focusing on one letter at a time to simply writing whatever came up, etc. I'm worried that in my over-concern for trying to make sure he's on the right trajectory and doesn't end up where I ended up, I'm loading him into the same sort of confused and frustrated spiral that paralyzed my handwriting progress. His handwriting is now legible, but it's far from neat, I still feel like he's drawing mental images of the letters rather than fluidly writing, and I see him do things like switch up grips and stroke orders. So what I'd like to do now is come up with an overarching long-term plan and course of action for his handwriting that I can stick to, and to that end, I'd love to hear any of your thoughts or your experiences with successfully getting a child to be a fluid and clear handwriter. Should I be letting him freely explore and develop his dexterity until older ages (when?)? Should I focus on one letter a week? How insistent should I be on proper grip? How long does the journey to final form take, and when should I be concerned about his progress? And so on! Sorry, I know this is open ended and probably feels a bit silly to be so concerned at this age, but I'd really like to get this right and already feel like I'm getting it wrong. Thanks so much for any help!

Jim Yang (https://www.childrenlearningreading.org/) and Spencer Russell (https://www.toddlersread.com/) both provide early reading materials/programs. In my opinion, they—and the growing number of unrelated people who have vlogged their efforts to teach their children early reading—have successfully demonstrated that many kids can successfully begin learning to read as early as 18 months, with many of those kids going on to be very strong readers in 1-2 years of practice. I’m sure it’s not for every kid, but if you have a child who seems attentive and interested, I personally think it’s worth strongly considering getting started early. I personally started to teach my son to read at 2.5 y/o. I would’ve started earlier but just wasn’t even aware it was a remotely feasible thing until I stumbled upon videos of Jim Yang’s kids reading at 2. I read his book and used his program to start. It’s really just a simple phonics program. The only secret ingredient seems to be breaking the lessons into bit sized, 5-10 minute lessons you do 1-3 times a day (e.g. at meal time). That said, I did find his book very helpful to me for learning the fundamentals and theory behind phonics instruction since I had no prior experience with phonics. I haven’t looked at Spencer Russell’s materials but from what I’ve gleaned he takes a very similar approach. I’m also aware of people out there, like “Homeschool Doctor” Dr. Theodore Nyame (https://www.instagram.com/homeschooldoctor/?hl=en), who seem to have taught their children to be very strong early readers starting with their own improvised, basic phonics instruction. After completing Jim Yang’s program, we did a program that appears to have been a repackaging of 100EZ lessons, and then we basically just read a lot, almost every meal. I also started doing Fry-Dolch flash cards with him daily, typically right before we did something fun like the playground. It was essential to me that the process always be without pain or frustration, so we read whatever my son was into (yes, Ninja Turtle books and such abound), and I read to him whenever he didn’t feel up to it (which was frankly 95% of the time in the beginning—I often just had him read the last 1-3 words in a sentence). We even had brief periods where we took a break from reading altogether. Now, my son is almost 4 years old, and I’m very happy with his reading. He reads everything around him when we’re out, and he reads a new book (typically around 2nd grade level) out loud to me each night with virtually zero error. I also still read a lot to him. He loves reading, it’s unlocked many fun things for him (e.g. games that require reading, or having his own e-mail address where he sends and receives cute e-mails), and it’s left me feeling relieved in his schooling ahead. I can focus the bulk of our work together on other skills and topics, and I don’t have to worry about trying to teach an increasingly energetic and distracted child something as complex as reading. I only have one child and no other experience with childhood education, so I can’t gauge how much aptitude may have played into my son’s success with early learning, but I wouldn’t be sharing if I thought it played a substantial role. I didn't have any special reason to think he could read early; I just saw Jim Yang's stuff and decided to give it a go. Some of the kids from the resources I shared above became even stronger readers than my son even earlier, and none of them were screened for giftedness or the like prior to starting, so I'm inclined to think it’s more feasible than not for a lot of kids, but of course I’ll leave that to everyone’s own assessment. Good luck with your grandchild! Based on what you shared, it sounds like she’ll be a great reader in due course regardless of what you choose to do.