Every homeschooling mom has a few books on her shelf that are the “tried and true never fail” types — the ones they are comfortable using, and seem to work equally well for all her children.
Teaching Your Child in 100 Easy Lessons is one such book for me. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but after having such a great time with my two youngest boys today, I just had to mention it again.
Any book that has my children dancing down the hallway in sheer excitement has GOT to be a good one!
Christopher (5) and Thomas (3 1/2) are both learning to read at the same time, and they are having a BLAST! I confess that I feel pretty guilty that I just “never got around to” teaching Christopher earlier (in a structured way, that is)… but the delay didn’t seem to hurt him any. He was so ready to learn!
I love the way this book get kids reading so quickly, AND they do present at least a few phonograms… so The Writing Road to Reading isn’t such a mystery when I start teaching the rest of the phonograms in first grade!
[one note, though: I wouldn’t be able to use The Writing Road to Reading if I didn’t have some help! I have the older version of Wanda Sanseri’s Teaching Reading at Home, which was truly the key to getting me started. Since then, I have also purchased Starting A Spelling Notebook my Mari McAlister, which is also a great Godsend!]
A surprise book that’s actually been a big hit around here was the book that I won from Danielle Bean’s raffle a few weeks back — the Red Letter Alphabet Book (donated by Alicia Van Hecke from Love2Learn). Even though Christopher and Thomas know their letters very well, they are still enjoying reading the words on each page. Thomas in particular is thrilled with this book, and went to sleep with it every night for at least a week! Marie has now discovered the book as well, and is greatly enjoying learning her letters (“E” is the favorite at the moment).
Regardless of what book we use, however, one of the greatest joys is to see a small child finally “get it” — to understand the connection between letters, sounds, and words, and to have the whole world open up to them as they start exploring the world of books. As an avid reader, it gives me a great feeling of accomplishment as I see my older children pick up a book and curl up on the couch, lost in the story.
What a privilege!
I am right there with you. I’m using the same book with Gianna right now, and she is so excited about reading. How fun that two of yours are learning at the same time!
Isn’t it fun? I thought the stories would be too goofy, but for some reason my kids have no problem with them! (what does that say about us as a family???)
My only problem with 100 EASY LESSONS is that it presents some words as “rule breakers” (such as “was” or “to,” for example, when in reality they make great sense when learning the phonograms. So, when I get to those words, that’s when I start “mildly” introducing some of them. When Christopher got to “was,” I asked him to make the 3rd sound of A and the 2nd sound of S, and he got the word immediately).
What a privilege we have to teach our children to read!