I am always on the lookout for fun, educational things to do with my kids, or to let them do on their own. I LOVED to read as a child (still do). Miss C (13) is NOT a reader. She doesn’t mind if I read to her but she does not like to read at all. Miss M (4) loves having books read to her.

About a month ago, Miss M came to me and asked me to teach her to read. “Mommmmmmy, will you teach me to read like you? I want to read the words on the pages!” Well, I read to her all the time but I didn’t want to mess with her learning process on reading by trying to teach her the wrong way. I used a program with my older daughter and it worked ok but I couldn’t remember the name of it. We bought Hooked on Phonics for Miss M.

Miss M is a stubborn one. She is funny. Last year I had her tested because I worked with her often and yet she didn’t know her colors, her shapes, etc. I was concerned. She went to my Moms’ house for a week and my Mom told me that she didn’t know what my issue was but Miss M. does know all of her colors, shapes etc. When she got home, we played some games and low and behold, she didn’t know but maybe 2 colors. I had her tested just in case. She was totally messing with me! She knew all of her stuff and then some at testing. They said she was ahead. The only thing she wouldn’t do for them was her gross motor skills assessment. Then there was her speech. They ended up referring her out for her speech because the lady couldn’t hear her in the room of other preschoolers and thought that she might have an articulation problem. On to the specialist for that. He was blown away by her vocabulary. He said she was at the same level as alot of his 8 year olds (this was at age 3). She could work on her Rs and her hard C sounds but nothing that would need services.

What does all of that have to do with reading, you might be wondering? Weeellll, fast forward to now: We bought the Hooked on Phonics System. When I went to use the flash cards with her for her alphabet, she could only tell me a few letters. No sounds. What in the world? It didn’t seem like she was messing with me again, but how could I be sure? I have to say that as much as I work with her, I was focussing on other areas and just saying our ABCs and pointing out letters on signs and what not. We didn’t really get into the ABCs as much because she just was not interested in it and I figured I would have awhile. Well, her not knowing any sounds or barely recognizing her letters really concerned me. I don’t know if she really did know them all and was playing around (but this was continuous too so who knows?) but I have a few recommendations for what we have been doing that works for us. We shelved Hooked on Phonics for now, except for the alphabet rings that come with the set and the ABC tape. She will listen and dance to the tape as I show her the cards. We do that a couple of times a week.

Miss M so excited about Hooked on Phonics(Sorry about the poor quality)

Playing the Hooked on Phonics game (She was rather bored with this. Being the silly kiddo she is, she miraculously picked all of the wrong answers EVERYTIME and when I asked her if she was doing it on purpose, she said “well ya Mommy..how else am I suppose to keep the one that is the right one?” hmmm)

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One BIG SURPRISE for me was the Leapfrog Letter Factory. She will watch that over and over again. I let her watch it quite a bit and limit other movies to a minimum or not anything at all daily. She now readily tells me her letters and many of her sounds. I prompted her with some too. For instance I would ask, “What is this letter?” (“H”) “What does the letter H say?” (shrugs shoulders) “Remember when H got really hot in the movie? What did letter H say?” (“oh HHHHHH”) “So what does the letter H say?” (“HHHHH”)

She is getting there and whether or not she knew the letters and sounds before, I can tell she feels a lot more confident telling me them now. She just started using Time4learning.com and likes that too. I like that it helps reinforce what she is learning. I will go more into that later.

We read atleast one book a day but most days she brings me many more. We also “read” animated ebooks as well. She likes those and I like how the words are highlighted as the story is read.

She does projects here and there working with letters. For example, she made a big letter ‘A’ and glued Fruit Loops to it to make a “FRUITY A”. Simple but she loved it!

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Mya also loves to write and now incorporates pretty much all of the letters of the alphabet in her writing. She writes a lot of “words” that are just a bunch of letters thrown together at the moment, but she also knows how to write many words on her own. She doesn’t know how to sound those ones out or anything. She just remembers from what I have shown her. She has written her name (only a few letters) since she was 3. She can write MOM, DADand HI. I know I am missing a few.

I just decided to “wing it” today. I opened up notepad and made the font ’48′ and typed A. I asked her what that letter was and what sound it makes. She told me. I the typed the letter T on the other side of the page. I asked her what letter that was (I had to remind her) and what the sound was. She told me. Then I had her sound them out a couple of times, she readily did. Then I moved the letters closer together on the screen and had her do it again. I then put the letters together and had her sound them out again. Then I told her to say it faster. She did and then I just said, “M.. what does that word say? Read it to me ” She did…”AT!” She was so excited to read! Then she read HAT and PAT.

We have awhile to go but how exciting to see the progress! I will keep you posted. I know long and boring to others probably but so neat to us!

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