Lately I’ve been extra motivated to teach my son, who just turned 3, how to read. It never even dawned on me that he would even be capable of doing this at such a young age until one of my friend’s informed me that her 3 year old can read. So in July I began to really teach him the sounds that each letter makes and recognition of each letter. (Leap Frog Fridge Phonics was a great help) Obviously, I’m no expert and I’m not professionally educated in this area, but hey, they worked! Hopefully somebody will read this and will find it helpful. Anyway, here are the different things I have been doing with him (and he loves it!):

~ ABC notebook- I bought a cheap spiral notebook, rounded up some old parenting magazines, and broke out the scissors and glue. Each page in the notebook is assigned a different letter. The first page being “Aa”, we browsed through the magazines looking for any “Aa’s” and pictures that begin with the letter “Aa”. I’d cut them out and glue ‘em on the page, making a very creative “Aa” collage. He loves doing this, but usually only stays focused for about 15 minutes or so.

~ Letter of the day- On blank white stickers (nametags, labels) I’d write a new letter (upper and lower case) everyday and we’d each wear one. Throughout the day I’d ask him what letter we were wearing, have him point out something in the house that begins with that letter…etc. If he couldn’t remember, I’d have him trot into the kitchen to his handy Fridge Phonics to find out. He would get very excited every morning and would remind me if I forgot to get give him his letter. After awhile, I’d let him choose the letter of the day.

~ “-at” words- I got this idea from my good friend. Think of a bunch of different “-at” words such as “pat”, “cat”, “bat” and write them down one at a time. Have your child make the sound of each letter and put the sounds together. I was sitting at the table feeding Scarlett and doing this with Charlie at the same time, not thinking anything would really happen. Well, IT DID!!! He read “bat” and “hat” all by himself! It was truly one of the coolest moments in my parenting so far. I got all teary-eyed and he jumped into my lap (before I even had a chance to praise him!) to give me a huge hug because he was so proud of himself.

~ Storytime- Whenever I read to him, I ask him questions about the story/pictures after each page I read. I think this helps him understand the story a little better and he gets to voice his opinions/thoughts about the book and characters. Also, I sometimes hand him a book and tell him to read it to me. He loves doing this, he feels important and smart (which he is, of course) and although he can’t read all the words, he is able to tell a story by looking at a picture.

Some people might think, “Damn, give it a rest, he’s only three!”, but it’s such a wonderful time spent with your child. Charlie loves it and gets so proud of himself. It’s also pretty neat to sit back and watch him teach Jenna all the stuff he knows. They will go to the fridge, put in letter after letter and sing “ABC’s” over and over!

What greater gift can you (help) give to your child, than the ability to read?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 at 11:32 am and is filed under kids, family, activities, ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.