Preschool at Home: Learning to Read at Home

I have decided that our main learning objective for the summer will be reading and handwriting. As you know I am constantly trying different things to find the right fit for Savannah and I. I also use all this research to form a blueprint for BabyM's learning path too. Of course, different kids respond to different things but at least by the time he is ready to learn to read I'll have a better road map for teaching him.

While doing a search on Amazon I came across this book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. The title alone peaked my interest. The promise states that all you need is twenty minutes a day everyday for 100 days and you and your child should have a nice foundation for reading. That seemed right up my alley. I can do twenty minutes everyday.


This book has been amazing. Not only does it teach your child how to sound out words but it also focuses on reading comprehension and handwriting. I did things kind of backwards with Sav. I taught her the alphabet and each letter's phonetic sound then I taught her sight words. I wish I had found this book before we did sight words. It hasn't really hurt her but I see now where it would have been better to use this book to teach her how to take the phonetic sounds she knew and turn them into words with these lessons. 
Hopefully I am saying this all clearly, LOL…
Anyway. I highly recommend this book if you are a parent that needs a road map. The book tells you exactly what to say to your child. It doesn't get much easier than that. It is such a joy to see Sav sounding out words and actually reading. We are only about a quarter of the way through the book and I am really pleased with her progress so far. After her lesson we sit and read a book together. She reads to me and I help her when she asks me to.
Has anyone else heard of this book? Have you used it? What did you think about it?
*I am not a teacher. I am not in the education industry. I'm just a Mom teaching my child at home. I did NOT get paid for this review. I purchased the book myself.*

Preschool at Home: Reading Resources (Sight Words)

I have often found that when people know how to do something, like sewing or doing hair, they are often not interested in teaching other people how to do it. Some may not even be willing to share how they learned. That's so funny to me. It's like they don't want anyone else to learn how to do something they're good at. They may even tell you that they'll be more than happy to teach you or share the info but they never follow through on that…

Well. As I have said before, I am a girl's girl. If I know something and I think it can help you I am going to share it. If I see that something has worked for my daughter or son I will be more than happy to share that with you. Why not? Sharing is caring and at some point I know I'll need someone to care for me and mine.

Today I am going to share some of the resources I have found online to make introducing Savannah to reading a breeze. We first started off by learning letters and their phonetic sounds and then we moved to sight words. I am not a teacher or educator of any sort. I am fumbling my way through teaching my daughter. I try different things until I find what works. So please consider all of that when you are reading these preschool posts. I'm just sharing our journey and I am not trying to come off as an expert at all.

Teaching Sav the sight words extremely boosted her confidence in reading. She even sounds out words a lot better too. We still have a long way to go but I think we're off to a great start. My little lady should be reading by her birthday and that was my goal for 2014. With that said, here are all 220 of the non-noun sight words sub-divided into five levels.

I like making my own flashcards. Since Savannah already knows many of these I'll be making cards for the words we still need to work on. If you visit this site you can download bingo cards to go along with the sight words. That's another fun way to help them learn. You may also remember that we like playing "musical words" or "word hop". I lay all the cards out on the floor and I have Savannah hop to the word I call out or I play music, she walks around, when he music stops she has to pick a word and tell me what it is. Very fun!

Did you find this helpful? I'll continue to share stuff as we find what works for us. Feel free to share and pin!

Preschool at Home: Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.

We are half way thru with January. Can't believe it. Savannah and I have been working really hard on sight words and reading. We live in walking distance to the library and we go there often to check out books or rent Wii games.

For this particular trip I wanted to focus on finding books that talked about Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. Our library had a few books to choose from and we chose the three below. I have enjoyed reading these to her and introducing to her some of the facts about our nation's history.


Since we had been reading so much about MLK's vision I thought it would be fun to help Savannah make a vision board, but on a smaller Pre-K level. I started by getting some of her painting paper and my letter stencils.


Then I just asked her what her dreams were. I wrote them down in the color of her choice. As you can see, this activity had very little to do with her learning to write or cut. This activity was all about teaching her to recognize her dreams.


I thought she came up with some pretty good dreams for a three year old. I asked her simple questions like, "If you could learn anything what would it be? and " What do you want to be when you grow up?". I think it will be fun to do this with her every year at this same time and save them. When BabyM is old enough he'll do it too.

I plan to stencil her name at the bottom between the stars. I wanted to get this post up before it got too late. So. What do you think? How will you observe MLK Day with your little one? I know someone is out there thinking that this maybe too much for a three year old. So. I'll share something with you that I told a friend earlier today…

Preschool at Home: Learning Sight Words

Now that the holiday season is over we are getting back to our routine. Slowly but surely. For Christmas Savannah received a literacy set that focuses on sight words. I will share the set and my review on it in a separate post. It came with DVDs and books. We've started using it but I want to use it a little more before I do a review here.

Anyway. While we were watching the video and reading the books I was trying to think of other ways to get her to recognize her site words. Part of learning to read is recognizing these words without having to figure them out. Since repetition is everything  I thought it would be fun to make large flashcards that can be used in several different ways. This way, not only is she learning to recognize her words but she's also having fun. Double win. Go me.

In this particular picture I put the words down on the floor, called out a word and had her bring the word to me. She really enjoyed this. Savannah thought it was so fun to look for words. She starts a literacy class in a couple weeks and I can't wait to see her turn into a little reader.

The kit that she received for Christmas says that you can start as early as 15 months. When Sav was that age I was teaching her the baby book of 100 words. It didn't include these type of sight words but I think I will start early with BabyM. When you know better, you do better, right?

What do you think about this idea? Have you started doing sight words with your little one?

Stack of Books

Source: Uploaded by user via Tia on Pinterest

These books have been in Savannah's room since she was born. However, today for some reason they got my attention. Everyting a girl needs to know is right here on her dresser....

Savannah's Book Club



Here are this month's book club picks. Everyone is familiar with the story of Ratatouille. The mouse chef who helps a young sous chef become famous. Count to 10 with a Mouse is a book we found in the book section at Publix. It is a cute picture book that teaches your child numbers through beautiful illustrations. Last but not least we have the very funny Come Back, Amelia Bedelia. In this book AB gets fired and has to find another job. It's a funny story with a great ending.

I hope you all enjoy this month's picks! 

Author Dreams

I have always known that I should be writing. I majored in broadcast journalism while in college. My favorite classes were always the writing based classes. I always seemed to do better in the on-air talent classes but I actually enjoyed writing more.

After college, I decided not to go into the tv news business. Mainly because the work hours did not agree with me. I like sleeping and spending holidays with my family. I knew that the real world was nothing like the projects we did as assignments. I have some pretty good footage of me on the campus and in the studio of East Carolina University. Those were great times. But I don't think it's really my path. If I'm suppose to be doing something tv/video related it will happen organically. I'm not going to force it.

Writing comes a lot more naturally for me. It's almost effortless. It's actually the primary reason I started this blog. To write about whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Another goal of mine is to write a children's book. I have been so inspired by my daughter. She is so funny and expressive. I am currently working on two different books. Hopefully they will be ready for submission or self publication by the end of the year.

I'm not looking to be famous or become an over night millionaire. I'm just looking to have my name associated with an ISBN number. I want kids and families to read my stories and find joy in them. Reading to my daughter is my favorite thing to do with her. She loves a good book. Maybe one day she'll be able to read one of my books to her own children. That would be success for me. The sweetest success.





Savannah's Book Club

 

Like many parents I read to my daughter everyday. We are BIG Dr.Seuss fans. These are her favorite books of the moment. As with all Dr.Seuss books, the illustrations are incredible. The stories have great plots and terriffic endings. Next month she will select three new books for you to enjoy!