A few months ago, we 'upgraded' from picture books (though we haven't abandoned picture books by any means) to read-aloud chapter books, namely books in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Matthew and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the Ingalls family and their life as pioneers in the late 1800's. It IS about a family of girls, but there is plenty in there about guns and bears and panthers and Indians.
Dan and I decided Matthew is ready to start to learn to read, so on New Years Day, we started Lesson One in "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons." My sister's three girls have all learned to read with this book, and I know numerous other families who use it as well.
Here we are, about to start his first lesson:
The lessons also include learning to write in lower-case. I must say, Matthew is doing quite well for a south-pawed four-and-a-half-year old!
The first few days of lessons were a little rough. He was bored and unmotivated. But I made him a chart which is a great motivation to him. Thanks for the idea, Auntie Melanie and Julie Anne!
At the end of every lesson, our other ritual is to do a "hi-five" with the number of fingers that corresponds to the lesson number we are on. For instance, today, we did a "hi-thirteen." For some reason, he thinks this is super-cool.
Here is Matthew reading his first word from the lesson book:
Today, Matthew read his first sentence!! Here he is, live and in action!
It sure is amazing opening Matthew up to the fascinating world of reading!
1 comment:
Yay Matthew!!
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