Thanks!

Hannah,
I’m sorry, but I don’t think that I can be much help. All I would recommend is to read to him, read with him and allow him to read below his ability for a while so that he can get that sense of accomplishment and learn to enjoy reading. We love Singapore math and all of our children enjoy it. Other than that we really haven’t used many other math programs.

Esther,
We do use direct supervision for training children with books, but then when our little ones are little they nearly always have direct supervision. I would certainly not say we use “endless nos”. With Nicholas (1), I can only remember a handful of times that I had to remind him to be gentle with books. Children are very smart and if your training is consistent it will not be endless. Training our children to be gentle with books has never been a battle and has never been a long process. Every child is different, but in our house a few simple instructions and yes, sometimes discipline about taking care of books has been sufficient for them to learn. Don’t get me wrong, we have had some books torn by little children, but for the most part we can be confident that when our children pick up a book they will treat it appropriately

As soon as our babies can sit up we give them board books to look at and play with. If they try to put it in their mouth we tell them, “Not in your mouth” and if they continue to want to mouth something we give them another toy. The board books allow the babies to learn the motor skills necessary for turning pages in a book without needing to worry about torn pages. By the time they are mobile enough to get to our regular books (which are kept low) they already know how to turn the pages so it is simply a matter of telling them to be gentle. Again, after a few gentle reminders we haven’t had any problems. Of course they are already know the meaning of “be gentle” from other training.

Thanks for the comments!

Blessings,
Kimberly

In response to Hannah’s queery about her son who is behind in math and reading, if you were to keep him home this year, I would recommend Math-U-See. I’ve used this program with my daughter who is on the autism spectrum and it has made all the difference. It makes good use of manipulatives to make sense of what he is teaching. I’ve allowed her to continue using the math blocks to help her solve her problems at her own pace and slowly she is learning them for herself. He uses greek letters to identify his materials rather than grade-specific numbers so it is not readily apparent that my 11 year old is just beginning 2nd/3rd grade math. For reading, I would encourage you to continue working at his ability level (your local librarian should be able to help you find materials that he is interested in at his level) but make good use of your read aloud time. *Usually* (each child is different), a child’s comprehension level is far above their ability to decode the written word, so this is a good opportunity to read books that really catch his interest that aren’t “baby” books. My sons interest in reading really took off when their dad and I read the Redwall series to them. They wanted to learn to read so they could read them for themselves! Now they take a book with them wherever they go (quite literally). Audiobooks are also a good way to keep interest in reading alive while you are waiting for skills to catch up.

Kimberly~I apologize for taking up so much space in your comment log!!

When I started teaching reading, I used ABeka phonics readers, ABeka charts a little bit, and the Little Owl books. I also used the Christian Liberty Academy Kindergarten Readers – we love those! Very cute stories and drawings, and our set is very tattered, but still alive, after 7 of our children using them. For a short while we enjoyed the Reader Rabbit computer CDs, and I think a little Schoolhouse Rock – these were usually used when I was having babies all the time and was quite busy! Lately I’ve acquired a set of Fun Tales from Sonlight, and while some of the stories are goofy, they build a little at a time, so that your child only needs to know a few sounds before they’re reading REAL words. Also used a lot of ideas from Get Ready to Read: A Practical Guide for Teaching Young Children at Home and in School, and lately have Ruth Beechick’s books. I wish I’d had those before I started teaching my children! They would have given me more confidence to realize that all my “informal” methods were actually very good teaching strategies.

For us, I found the hardest part is the child learning to blend the sounds together. We’d always end up taking a break here – keep going over sounds, and some basic sight words, keep reading aloud to them, but not much formal instruction. Our 7 readers (so far) learned to read well (short vowels and long vowels – help with longer words still needed): most by age 5, two by age 4, and one by late age 6. I basically just feel extremely blessed, and have usually felt like I’m having to keep up with them, instead of having to push them.

One trick that helped my girls LOVE to read was finding the right book! After they had most of their sounds down, sometimes I would find that they didn’t want to read for pleasure. But at some point the “right” book would end up in their laps, and they would love it, read it over and over, and take off from there. It happened with both girls, with different books, and now they LOVE to read.

My youngest is going into a mainstream school for the first time, maybe ever. He is going into 5th grade and is significantly behind in reading and math. Any recommendations? He loves reading his Bible and we read CBH’s Keys for Kids together as well. I would love to see him devour books, since he is interested in so many fascinating things (stars, animals, the military etc…)

Blessings!

Hannah

Jamie,
Thanks for weighing in. I know a few people who have not enjoyed “100 Easy Lessons” (two to be exact ) and both of them ended up loving Phonics Pathways. I haven’t heard much about “Hooked on Phonics”, but finding something that your child loves is the best! Would you mind giving us your take on that program? Here or in the community discussion. I imagine others would be interested!

Bekki,
Would you mind giving us a synopsis of Horizons, here or in the community discussion?

Here is another hint that I’ve learned with using “100 Easy Lessons”. When they get to the part where it teaches them to read it “the fast way”, I’ve found that to be unnecessary and sometimes frustrating for my little ones, so now we just skip it and they gain speed naturally as they go.

For Kristin Mikarts, if your son has an auditory processing disorder check out Diane Kraft(might be with a c) her whole program is geared twoards this delay and my friend who uses is can’t say enough good things about it. Her son can now remember his letters and sounds and is starting to read(he is turning 8).

Now for reading, I’m still sort of a newbie to homeschooling, we just finished our 2nd year. I have a 9 year old who unfortunately spent K and 1st in public school where he mainly learned to read there. I also have a 6 year old whom I have solely taught to read. We are also avid believers in reading aloud to the kids. We’ve done it all their lives. I read to them in the day, they read to each other and Daddy reads to us all at Dinner time (Bible) and bedtime (story). When my 6 year old had her first Birthday party, we bought her a beautiful bookcase and asked all of her party guests to bring books. Needless to say, we love books at our house and read a lot and I really do believe that makes a huge difference in instilling in the children a love for reading and a desire to learn to read themselves.

We used the 100 easy lessons for my 6 year old, but she outright hated it. She would kick and scream when it was time for the lesson and with that being my 1st year homeschooling, I was clueless as to what to do. So I just stopped it and continued reading to her. A friend of mine found the box set of Hooked on Phonics for K and 1st grade clearanced for $20 and called me to see if I wanted it. What a blessing that was. She LOVED it!! She loved the stories, the characters, the lessons, the lady who talks on the CD, the praise chart, everything!! We did the K and 1st grade levels in one year, because she just breezed right through it. I am in absolute awe of how far we came with her. Now she’s a sponge, soaking up every book she can get her hands on!!

I rarely hear about homeschoolers using Hooked on Phonics, but I would definitely recommend it. I believe you can even check it out of libraries for free!!

Thanks again for the blog and blessings to you!

Thank you!!
Kristin