this helped the child understand the concept of words being made up of sounds.
I have written the letters on small pieces of paper, which we then used to shuffle
around to spell new words. During this
phase I also made use of easy beginner
“word books,” using them to practice
searching for the letter we had learnt during the day. For example, if we learnt the
S, we would search for words with an S in
them, and I would pronounce the word,
guiding my child to discern the sound of
the S in the word.
Decoding
In this phase you are really teaching phonics, which can be messy, since there will
be those odd sounds/spellings that don’t
“obey the rules.” Don’t be too bothered
about that. In our home we have taught
reading and writing together, and by following the previous steps of learning letters, writing them, recognizing them in
words, and making up words with them,
it took only a matter of a few weeks to
teach all twenty-six letters. The only other
things I taught as part of this phase were
the sound pairs (such as ay, ai, ea, etc.),
which I also let my child write down in
his/her notebook.
Fluency
This phase is really what reading is about,
as this phase is now the “every day a little
bit” of reading and writing practice that
has to happen in order for the child to develop fluency. We checked out many beginning readers books from the library to
read together. The goal was to read every
day—even if it was just a few lines.
Levels of motivation and the speed at
which each child reached fluency differed among my children. For some it was
The goal was to read
every day—even if it was
just a few lines.
weeks, and for another, months. I have
found that the most important commitment for me to make during this phase
is to take the time to sit down with the
child and read a book aloud, taking turns
with who is reading. Do not assume too
quickly that the child is reading well and
that therefore (s)he can now read alone.
The child still needs to hear the sounds
and words, and you still need to check
whether (s)he is reading correctly.
I have used narration effectively as a
means of testing the skill of comprehension when reading. Narration is the concept (popularized by Charlotte Mason)
of the child telling back to you in his/
her own words what he/she read and is
an important building block for good
communication, as it forces one to think
about what you want to say before you
can really say it.
It has been obvious as I have taught
my children to read that the wider their
exposure to vocabulary (through hearing
it), the better they can sound and therefore read the words. This is the reason
why they read many nonfiction books
during grades 1 to 3. The main purpose
is to expose them to a wide variety of vocabulary in all sorts of fields. They don’t
even realize when they are reading “
difficult” and long words, since I just never
mention it to them. I believe that this has
helped them not be afraid of trying to
read all sorts of material (advertisements,
newspapers, all sorts of books), which is
exactly what I want them to do.
I have helped them maintain a record
of books they have read and have also
helped them learn to summarize facts
from an early age. Both of these activities
