Our Pre-K Reading Experience

I thought about titling this post a few different things:  “Amy’s Eager Beaver Approach to Reading” or “How to Have a False Start and Still Manage to Raise a Reader” (the jury’s still out, actually), but I settled on the more benign title.  Let me be the first to admit that I really don’t know much about what I’m doing.  The only official training I have in reading is a semester’s worth of “Reading Across the Curriculum” as a part of my secondary education preparation back fifteen or so years ago.  This particular class wasn’t very good, anyway, so to say that I know nothing about this is not an exaggeration.  Fortunately, I’m working with a virutally clean slate here, not teens who have become desensitized to the pleas of the adults in their lives to get them to read something, anything.  Odds are that Lulu will learn to read, read well, and enjoy reading, despite my tremulous attempts and groping in the dark methodologies.  What I lack in knowledge I make up for in enthusiasm and in desire for my daughters to succeed, so I carry on on this path with the faith that this counts for something.

Back about a year ago, I decided to start doing some formal lessons with Lulu to hasten the day when she would become a reader.  Encouraged by the words of Jessie Wise that it’s okay to start with a (mostly) interested student before she turns five and a recommendation for The Ready-to- Read, Ready- to- Count Handbook on Hilary’s blog, I forged ahead.  Lulu already knew most of the consonants and their sounds before we began this, so much of this work was review and reinforcement.  (You can read more about what we did in the very beginning here and here and here.)  The Ready-to-Read, Ready-to-Count Handbook is a great resource, particularly for a child’s first introduction to letters and sounds.  Our main tool for use with these lessons was a set of home-made letter cards.  I cut large pieces of chipboard (the thick cardboard-type material that is often used as a stabilizer for shipping books, paper packets, etc.)  into rectangles, covered them with scrapbook papers from my overflowing stash, and cut the consonants out of sandpaper using stencils.  The vowels were made out of felt.  Both consonants and vowels were then glued to the paper covered rectangle.  These letters have been a lot of fun for the girls; in fact, they got them out just last week and made a “really long” word with them.  🙂

A little ways into this routine, I acquired a copy of The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading (known hereafter as OPGTR).  I am going to admit it right here:  I am completely in love with the idea of a classical (neoclassical?) education for my children.  Something about it just makes sense to me–the methodologies, the “big picture” view I get when I read The Well-Trained Mind (WTM), the progression of skills through the study of history on a four year cycle.  It follows, then, that I would use the resources recommended therein, right?  Well, for those of you unfamiliar with WTM, it was written by Susan Wise Bauer, and OPGTR is the manual her mother, Jessie Wise, wrote for parents who want to give their children a very strong phonics-based reading foundation.  It is very cut-and-dry–no illustrations whatsoever, nothing “cutesie” at all.  While I can’t say that Lulu has jumped for joy when we’ve spent time on the lessons in OPGTR, it has worked in that by the time she turned five she could sound out CVC words with minimal help.  Being the overly-analytical gal that I am, I wonder sometimes if she’d benefit from or enjoy something with more bells and whistles a little more, but since it seems to be working, we have decided to continue on in this vein for kindergarten.  We completed almost through the first section of lessons before taking our summer break, so after a review, we will continue on with the next section of OPGTR, which is blends, when Lulu is officially a kindergartener.   Stay tuned for a more detailed overview of our kindergarten plans in the near future.

Although we have adhered to OPGTR pretty closely, I have also supplemented these lessons with various other books and materials.  OPGTR is very thorough, and because Lulu is so young, I often broke a lesson into two or three days instead of covering it in one.  The words and sentences that the child reads in the book are in a font that is only slightly larger than what one usually reads in a book (I’m guessing that the font might be a twenty or a twenty-four, but I don’t have the book in front of me right now), and in addition to this, the words and sentences are just a part of the page.  In other words, they share page space with lots of scripted text for the teacher to read.  I think this might be visually a little much for Lulu to handle, so I would often type the words and sentences in a much larger font on another piece of paper.  I also sometimes used the whiteboard for variety.   We also used workbooks to reinforce some of this early work.  The girls have enjoyed some preschool workbooks from the Target Dollar Spot, as well as various Kumon workbooks for school readiness.  I even resorted to making my own games on occasion.  I made a matching game of CVC rhyming words which was a big hit.   To do this, I cut 3.5″x5″ index cards in half and wrote a pairs of rhyming words on two of the halves.  The object, then, was to simply match rhyming words. 

One the things both girls have enjoyed is a set of letter tiles I bought for $3 or so at Tuesday Morning.  This resource is going to be a very valuable one to mix up our reading lessons a little–both girls love to play with these.  (I found a link here at Office Depot, but I didn’t pay that much for mine.)

I would certainly be remiss if I didn’t mention the Bob books.  We have used the first set with some success.  In fact, these little decodable readers were the first books Lulu read on her own.  She still hasn’t mastered all of the sounds in this first set, but I am confident that she will once we start our learning time back in earnest in the next few week.  The only drawback of these books is that the child might soon learn to “read’ the simple illustrations instead of the words.  However, for a gentle introduction to reading, these can’t be beat. 

This is how we’ve approached reading so far at the House of Hope.  Each lesson lasts no longer than fifteen minutes, and I try not to push if Lulu truly isn’t interested.  I think if I had it to do over, I might have just waited to begin OPGTR with her this year for official kindergarten, but I don’t think this gentle introduction has hurt her in any way.  I just think we might’ve made quicker progress if I hadn’t been so eager.  😉  Ah, well.  I think I’ll learn as much much more than my girls on this educational journey. 

I think this quote about parenthood best reflects my feelings about education now:

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.  ~John Wilmot

One thing I do know:  for better or for worse, I am so very thankful for the privilege of teaching my children.  Thank you, Lord, for providing this for our family!