Daddy, Papa and Me

We are about to finish the first section of this book, which is simple and straight forward three sound words like 'cat, hat, dog, bus, pig' etc. The practices and games focus on things like blending sounds and segmenting, reading and writing. So far Emma is doing very well. At the beginning of the book is an assessment which I did for Emma, she scored 'low-moderate' for her age.

A couple observations:
1. After doing the assessment and teaching Emma for a month now from this book, I am more aware of the difficulties she has had in reading. The things she did not do well in, and struggled with in our lessons are the very things the learning specialist was concerned about. So, that has been helpful and has given me some perspective. Interestingly though, it has reinforced our decision to put Emma forward to first grade. I see her struggling in one aspect of her learning, but not something that can't be worked with. And she is making quick progress.

2. Which brings me to my second observation, she has made a lot of progress in the last few weeks. She focuses better, she reads better, she has no problem reading three letter words (well, she still guesses a lot when she is tired or just doesn't want to read). She's much better at blending sounds, segmenting sounds, reading and writing than she was three weeks ago.

We soon (Tuesday) will get into the second section of the book which deals with two consonants like "frog, milk, plant" etc. She didn't do so well at segmenting the sounds in these words in the assessment, so we'll see how this goes over the next 2-3 weeks. The last section (and longest) of the book is on 'sound pictures' like "sh, ch, ck, ae, a_e, o_e" etc. "Shake" would be a double-example of these.

Additionally, we been doing other things. Of course, since she was a couple weeks old we have read to her every night with few exceptions. We've added her reading to us now. Every night she reads to us a Bob Book:

She's completed the first set, so we are on to the second.

We also have been playing games that deal with sounds and words. For example, our favorite game so far is a modified "go fish." The cards are words from the Reading Reflex and Bob book. I made the cards on index cards and there are only two of each word (100 words so far, we use 50 at a time, using more and more complex words as we progress, using the simpler words too as review). We added a twist, everytime someone gets a pair, they pick a "Bernie Botts Every Flavor Bean" from the pot and put it on their pair. Whoever loses has to eat one of the beans from the winner's cards. Emma LOVES this, in fact so much that she has now decided that the winner gets to eat all their beans... and she looks forward to getting a weird one. So far she's gotten black pepper, dirt and booger. She loves it.

Just this weekend we started a "Fancy word of the day." We got the idea from Fancy Nancy's Favorite Fancy Words. Emma loved the book and we were advised to help build her vocabulary and so we've been adding a fancy word of the day. We'll write it on an index card, decorate it, tell Emma what it means and then use it throughout the day. I don't think we'll do this everyday, probably 3-5 days a week. So far we've done "doubt" and "fiasco." She enjoys it.

Oh, and one more thing, in addition to my tutoring we have a tutor here in Utah helping for two weeks. She takes Emma for an hour a day while I run errands and tutors her exclusively with games. She reinforces some of the things we learned in 'homeschool' and she helps with math, numbers and calendar. We are doing that for a couple reasons, one to help Emma with these things she needs practice and help on a and one to help us see where she needs help and give us some pointers.

Phew, it sounds like a lot, but really, we've incorporated it so smoothly into our day, it doesn't seem like much. It's about 1 1/2 - 2 hours a day of lessons and games over the course of the day.

And something else seems to be changing, she seems more interested in both reading and math. She's asking a lot more for us to read signs on the road and reading them herself. She's also asks and tries to guess larger numbers she sees on the road much more than she used to and adds things together a lot.

Even now, as I write this, she pulled out a dry-erase board Guy got for her that has letters, simple math and shapes. She's been doing it now for a 1/2 hour on her own, instigated it and seems to thoroughly enjoy herself. In fact, as she was writing down th lower and upper case letters on the board, she was making up a song to go along with each letter and how you write it.

So, progress is being made :D

now, some thoughts next time...