On our way to reading
Several months ago Logan came to us and said "I want to learn to read." In response, we've continued doing a lot of what we've always done with him - only with more awareness that it could be a tool used to learn. He likes to use his magnet letters to spell. He'll arrange them himself and ask us "What does that say?" Sometimes it says nothing. Sometimes it actually says something. Regardless we sound it out for him - even if its not a real word - so he can hear the letter sounds and understand how they go together. He has a few 'workbook' type booklets focused on phonics and rhyming. He's got a few of those "Stage 1" learn to read books that we go through with him. And we take care to point out words that appear throughout our day.As a result he's got about a dozen or more words that he can read whenever he sees them - regardless of the context they appear in. He has a few others that he can pick out only when he sees them in certain books or packages. And then there's a whole host of books that he has memorized and will pretend to read by dragging his finger along the words he knows are there even though he's not clear which set of letters goes with which words he's saying.
For the most part the words he reads on his own are either names or simple 2-3 letter combinations -- no, go, it, its, not, Logan, Megan, Mom, Dad, Mommy, Daddy, dog, Papa, I, me, my, you. He does know the sounds each letter makes and he's starting to understand how to put those sounds together to sound out a word he sees on paper. Today he started to recognize "at" and began to make the connection of using that as a sound paired with other letters - cat, hat, that, etc.
He's not ready to really sit and read a book yet - although he can get through "David Gets in Trouble" on his own because the majority of the words he can read appear on each page. ;) He *is* making progress and he's so very proud of himself for it. . .and of course so are we.
posted by Sandy at
12:36 PM
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