Need help with Pre-K

[parias1126]

I have posted before about my 4.5 yr old DS. He has had no interest in learning anything at all. He doesn't know his letters, their sounds, can't identify numbers. He has had speech issues and was in speech therapy from the age of 2-4. He was released from speech therapy although I dont think he should have been.

 

Over the last month he has finally shown interest in wanting to learn. I'm so excited! He has been playing with letters in the tub and wanting to know what letter it is. I'm not sure he really gets what it means when I tell him the sound and how each letter makes a certain sound. He still can't repeat the letters and their sounds. The only letter he recognizes every time he sees it is "O" and also the numbers "3" and "1". He is actually wanting to be read too, but doesn't sit for the whole book. His attention span is horrible. We will get to the last 3 pages and he says, "ok! I'm all done!" so we close the book. I just dnt want to push, but he really needs letter practice.

 

He goes to have an eye exam this coming Thursday. He went to the eye doc on Friday because he had an eye infection and the eye doc was extremely concerned as well.

 

If you have any ideas for me, I would greatly appreciate it! Whether it be a 2-3 day a week Pre-K curriculum, a website, a great book, a great game, puzzle, etc. He has had a lot of fun playing with the Starfall app on the iPad, but he isn't retaining anything. He has just recently learned to count to 10 by using the iPad. Love love the iPad! I would love any links to suggested books on Amazon. Maybe a great ABC book?

Edited July 10, 2011 by parias1126

[umsami]

I'd hold off on much until the eye exam, if the pediatrician is concerned. Just so you know, that often with young kids, they need to use drops to get an accurate reading. (Used to be atropine, not sure if they still use them or not.)

 

For letters, all of my kids have learned the basic letters/sounds using the LeapFrog Letter Factory DVD. They love it. We also had the Fridge Phonics thing by Leap Frog which might work even if your child has some sort of vision impairment, as the kids can feel the shape of the letter. I bought mine years ago (at least 5 years ago), and on Walmart.com they used to give you the numbers as well for free. No idea if they still have that deal.

 

My daughter is 4, and has really loved the new HOoked-on-Phonics stuff. They usually have codes online you can find--we used HOP35 and got 35% off of the Pre-K one. It includes a workbook with star stickers for each page, online activities, flash cards for rhyming/letters, story books, and DVDs that feature songs for each letter as well as an ABC song. If you go to Youtube, you can see the Hooked on Phonics ABC song at

[NanceXToo]

I will be starting K with my son in September and he will turn 6 in November. I briefly tried K last fall for a few weeks, but he just wasn't ready/interested enough, which I figured was fine (he wasn't even technically of K age if we went by public school cutoff dates anyway).

 

So we just did another year of informal pre-K. He still doesn't know every single letter but he did learn a lot of them over the past year (and picked up lots of math skills very informally, and computer skills which he enjoys- so reading, writing etc isn't everything, and keep in mind he's a year older than your son - I figure it will all come in the end in its own good time)!

 

Anyway, some of the things we did were:

 

Playing on starfall.com (which he doesn't "retain" much of either)

 

Watching Leapfrog Letter Factory

 

Occasionally reading "ABC" type books (there's one about Curious George which is a really good one).

 

And we started a homemade "ABC Book" which involved using a scrapbook type thing where I'd write the upper and lowercase letters on one side, and then we'd find something we could glue or tape onto the other side that started with that letter of the alphabet.

 

So for the "B" page you might glue in buttons or stick on bandaids.

 

For the "C" page you might glue on cotton balls or coins.

 

That kind of thing.

 

There are also board games that focus on the ABC's...there's a cat in the hat one and a garanimals one, for example.

 

The K program I'm going to use this year focuses on learning the uppercase letter of the alphabet in hands-on, Waldorf-inspired kind of ways, such as looking for the letters in nature, drawing them in the dirt with sticks, tracing them in a tray of flour or salt with your fingers, learning them with stories and drawings and that kind of thing.

 

I figure it doesn't much matter whether a kid learns to read, write, all their letters etc before they're even 6- it used to be that was what first grade was for. Now K has become much more academic to "prepare" kids for 1st grade, and then pre-K became much more academic to "prepare" kids for K- I don't want our earliest years to be like that, so I'm not stressing over it. I know it will happen in its own good time and for now we're just having fun, learning all sorts of things more informally, and looking forward to giving this gentle, hands-on K another shot this fall. I'm confident that by the end of that year, him not recognizing all his letters etc will be a non-issue.

[Soror]

At that age with ds we did lots of read-alouds, games to introduce- numbers and counting and because he loved it, fingerplays and songs(wee sing), practicing writing with chalk and sticks in the rocks(sand would be good as well- he wasn't ready for a pencil until 5.5). We just had a lot of fun and I tried not to worry. He was ready to start with writing at 5.5 and started reading instruction at 6. Irregardless he is coming along fine now. It seems often boys are later going than others.

[spaceman]

Here's an active learn letters, letter sounds, or numbers game:

 

Write letters on index cards, make 2 sets.

Place 3-5 far away (at the end of a long hall, or outside)

The game is to run and grab the right card and bring it back. If you have more than 1 player, the each get their own letter.

At first, while he's starting out, hand him the letter card and say the name. Then, progress to saying the name and showing the card, but you keep it as he runs to grab the match. Finally, just say the letter.

Some kids may enjoy using a stop watch to see how fast they can go.

[La Condessa]

I find the website 1plus1plus1equals1.com really helpful. She's got tons of ideas of educational things to do with young kids at different levels.