Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Adventures in Reading: Lesson 19

Noogs is coming along with her reading, though we've hit a slight block: she wants to sound out her words as disjointed sounds, instead of connecting them. Thus, "ram" becomes "r-a-m". I don't think this is unusual in learning to read, but it's odd that at first she should have blended the sounds together and then now want to isolate them. But then -- brain flash! -- earlier I was reading the words slowly first and then having her sound them out, and now she sounds them out alone, so she doesn't have my example to copy. Okay, never mind about the above...

She really enjoys reading the little stories in the book, then answering questions about the accompanying picture. The stories aren't complicated: "See the ram sit." "The rat is sad." It gives her a great sense of accomplishment to read them herself, though. After we're done with a lesson, she'll flip through the rest of the book and have me say some of the sounds we haven't learned yet. "I'm teaching you, Mommy!" she says.

Here's a word of caution for those trying to teach small children to read. One of the words she was sounding out was "ma". After she read it, I said, "Do you know what a sheep says? Maaaa!" This so tickled her that now when she sees the combination of a and m (such as "am") she'll start maaa-ing like a sheep until I make her pay attention and say each sound individually. It's her little in-joke. So mothers, don't make animal noises while teaching your children to read, or else you'll never hear the end of it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We're on lesson 9 too. Well, Jude is. Joseph has certain issues so I've slowed down with him. I've actually started over with Joseph and I'm only having him do a task or two a day. I don't know how well that will work out for him, though. We shall see.

We bought the "Bob" books and they are really great. Jude read the first set (4 books) to Miss Bridget last night. She got bored with him and didn't want to listen anymore, so he told her she was breaking a commandment by not letting him read to her.

Yes, they're learning the Ten Commandments now too. And apparently making up a few of their own.

Anyway, I'm so glad you mentioned 100 Easy Lessons. I'm very happy with it.

mrsdarwin said...

Ha! That should have been a commandment when I was young: "Thou shalt not disobey thy older sibling." In reality, it works out to: "Thou shalt not make the youngest fuss, or it shall go hard with thee."

I'll look at the library for the Bob books. I bet Noogs would like to have some little books she can really read on her own.

Amber said...

Ah yes, I made that sort of mistake too. Every once in awhile when I am saying the word slowly and she repeats it, then says it fast I use the word in a sentence just to make sure she realizes that we're talking about words rather than just sounds. So one time I said "I sat on the cat" which she found terribly funny and every time we come across the word sat she has to say the sentence several times. She'll also try and come up with some of the strangest little sentences of her own which has been quite interesting. It is all still going quite well though, and we're both enjoying it.