Hi Folks! I remember having a Bible reading checklist when I was a child that had little squares to color for each chapter of the Bible. These boxes were arranged into letter shapes, so when you were reading Genesis you would color a box that made up the shape of a "G", one for each chapter. Any ideas anyone? DD #1 is almost halfway through Genesis for the first time for herself :).

Dial-up double post, sorry.

I don't have an older child, but I do have a just-turned-five-year-old with articulation delays. I have actually heard her speech becoming clearer when we work on the rhyming, sentence segmenting, and other activities. Even though we haven't entered into the letter sounds part of the curriculum yet (she already knows hers), I am still noticing benefits for her, and I'm thrilled :). I just wanted to chime in because of her speech difficulties. I think that the program IS useful for helping with that (we are on lesson 14 or so, so it is still early, but I'm very happy with it).

Hey, I'd stick with what you are doing. Read aloud to them FOREVER, just make sure they are doing some reading of their own for fun too to build speed and fluency. Anything they are interested in will work!

Basically, this is a 'ditto' post, but i wanted to add that you should read, read, read aloud to your child, that is one of the most important things that you can do at this stage of life. Any good, classic, children's literature will do :). There is a HUGE difference between skills and content. My children have had huge appetites for Magic Schoolbus books at this age (4.5), children are naturally fascinated by science and the world around them. BUT skills take practice and developmental readiness. At 4.5 my second child knew all of her short letter sounds but was in no way ready to blend. At 5 she can do some blending, but often when she gets to the end of a word she has blended well she blurts something else out entirely! No worries though, she'll get it in time, and so will your son :). For now we are doing AAR pre-1 for some gentle letter/phonological/rhyming skills and she adores it. It is very developmentally appropriate for a 4 to 5 year old if you'd like to do something 'schooly' together :). Now, if your son WANTS to write (my second born is always asking me how to spell things even though she isn't reading yet), so she does a lot of writing on her OWN. If he doesn't want to write though, I wouldn't stress about it at this age. You can do some large motor movements to do letter formation if you want to as you teach basic letter sounds (air tracing, writing in rice etc.) but keep it fun :). Maybe do some counting, some number recognition up to 10, and you are good. Just read together and have fun!

Yay! Stay away from these boards for at least a year now! LOL! Or not, especially if you need to sub something out ;). We are ALMOST done for next year! Just a few odds and ends/supplies to pick up I think!

Reading programs for building fluency in the early years? I'm in favor of specifically chosen books that increase in length, difficulty of vocabulary etc. in an appropriate sequence. However, beyond that I'm not a big fan of a formal reading program, particularly if it involves only excerpts or short stories! I just let them read real books that interest them :).

I recommend really getting your basics down before buying any other curriculum. So, make sure you get reading practice, writing, math, spelling figured out before thinking too much about science, history, art etc. Those are all 'extras' as far as I'm concerned :). Fun extras of course, but if you are feeling a bit uncertain, just do the basics, and I' not big into teaching formal health at all, but that's me ;).

I would look into using some readers to build fluency. We really like Sonlight's progression of grade 1 - grade 4/5 readers :).

I have an affiliate link in my siggy too :). We are on Step 13 of AAR Pre-1 and we're doing it with my just-turned five-year-old. I sort of wish we'd had it for her to do when she was 4 and was first getting interested in letters. She doesn't want to take ANY days off, and absolutely loves the puppet. She can't wait to 'do school', she runes to me in the morning, "Do school, mommy, do school!" She definitely loves it! We bought the whole she-bang, and I'm glad we did. Even my just-turned-eight-year-old LOVES the program even though she's a fluent reader. It is just so much fun! The games that Marie Rippel has incorporated into the curriculum are just excellent and so developmentally appropriate for little ones. My 2.5 year old also likes to do co-ordinating coloring sheets (I just print her one with the same animal on it and she goes to town.) I agree with Kel, the lessons are short, and very do-able, and I love that it is all planned out for me. As far as whether or not to wait, it really depends upon your child's interest level and whether they are ready to start learning about letters. I think my 2.5 year old is TOO young (though she does like to sit in), I think 4 would be just perfect for most little ones :).

When my children get gift money I buy them bits and pieces of 3/4. They are GREAT books, we already owned some of them and loved them to pieces, but we are now buying a few now and then (birthdays, Christmas etc.) to build our family library. They really are winners :). My older children listen to them too, so I think they make great choices for children older than 3 and 4 as well :).

Dial-up double-posting for me again, sorry folks!

I hate it when I have a lonely post, so I thought I'd join the party! Woohoo! ;) We are doing AAR too, and having lots of fun! We CAN'T skip any days, not even birthdays! Not according to our five-year-old! We are excited to see when Level 1 comes out too :).

Awesome AngelBee, that last post link is VERY helpful :). Aww, too bad about your brother's Mac. I know the feeling, my now 2.5 year old bum-slammed my MacBook and broke the screen when she was around 1.25 ($800 repair!)

I really like the SL reading series to build fluency. Another suggestion is the new Imagination Station series of books (Christian) that starts with Voyage to the Vikings. Very adventurous with some history thrown in :).

My DD basically couldn't spell at all until we did AAS. She just wasn't getting the concept. She's just turned 8 and things are really clicking for her now conceptually. We just started step 6 of level 2 this week :). We really like it because it gives us good results! It is logical, systematic, and I can see her applying what she has learned!

WONDERFUL! Thanks :).

Awesome AngelBee, that last post link is VERY helpful :). Aww, too bad about your brother's Mac. I know the feeling, my now 2.5 year old bum-slammed my MacBook and broke the screen when she was around 1.25 ($800 repair!)

Half the price is what I consider a good buy on a SL core :).

I'm another AAS gal. For vocabulary we read aloud a lot and discuss new words when we hit them (informally). We also do Latin :). No formal vocab program here though.

When we are still doing active phonics instruction we do A Beka's first grade readers for lots of practice, then it's onward and upward with real books! I really love SL's reading sequence to develop fluency! We also have some easy reading chapter books we've picked up here and there to supplement our SL readers with.

You can totally start in preschool! My second-born was a very proud four-year-old reciting Ooey Gooey when she first learned it :). She recited it for grandparents too :). She and DD often say it just for fun! Classic :).

We traded for a copy of Isabel Barclay's "The Story of Canada" (yep, there are a lot of books with this title, eh?) with a local mom who is on the boards here, so I'm going to toss that into the mix this year for a brief grammar stage intro to Canadian history. I won't lit it up though, there's only so much of that I can do! I'll just use it as is :). I'm actually NOT planning on doing Canada studies next year! Just our SL 1+2, then in 4th it's on to TOG Yr 1! Maybe in 4th I'll throw in Donna Ward's higher level geography program (forget what it's called?), and then I'll wait to do a more in depth history study with MHTCE with TOG (by the seat of my pants) when we get to it in the appropriate year plans! LOL! That's some VERY long term planning, eh? ;)

I really enjoy the flavor of AO's book selections, but I can't figure out how to do multiple levels with their program. In amy case, we're currently using SL then its on to TOG. I'd still like to use chronologically co-ordinating AO selections though, so I'm wondering if there is any chronologically sorted list of AO books along with the grade they are typically assigned in for AO? Chronologically first, grade second? Thanks!

That DOES sound fun Marie! Donna Ward actually recommends you follow Canada, My Country with her study of First Nations peoples, so it sounds like you've done much the same thing, but your-style :). I am SUCH an over-planner, I don't think I could pull it off without some sort of outline. I'm glad to have Donna's work, and just pull things off the shelf to supplement/tweak as we go :). Yup, you know me - I totally don't mind! I'm a serious hi-jacker (snicker!) Hope you are feeling better soon! I saw on another thread you weren't feeling so well!