My son was one of those who, at the age of 3.5, had pretty much self-taught himself his letters and sounds. Yes, we worked on them and played with them, but I had to do very little teaching. He just “got it”. That’s why I created Reading the Alphabet. It’s designed for kids who know their letters and sounds (or mostly know them) and are ready to dive deeper into manipulating and applying those sounds among a variety of other reading, writing, and math skills.
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This year, my daughter (age 4) has started Reading the Alphabet {the activities you see are from our bundle pack} and we’re 5 weeks in…and…I’m happy to report she’s LOVING IT! She begs for it. Even on Saturdays and Sundays. She cries if I say, “I don’t have any schoolwork to print off for you today.” Seriously.
I will admit that I was nervous starting it with her. Why? Because she’s very different than my son. It took her longer to learn her letters and sounds (some of which she still needs to review) and I had to be very explicit in my teaching. She didn’t just “get it” like my son. And that’s okay. 🙂
Reading the Alphabet (5 weeks in)
So, we’re five weeks in. And today I’m just going to share a few snap shots of her hard at work/play. {Some of these were taken with my phone so I apologize for the graininess of them.}
One of the features of the Updated and Expanded Bundle Pack is the lacing cards for every letter. While she enjoys lacing them, we’ve also incorporated our Learning Links at times to change it up a bit. She really liked linking them on and then seeing how long she could make each strand of links.
She adores coloring and reading the emergent reader and is SO proud of herself when she can read it independently. She even loves to color code the words. Ha!
We use the one-page readers on Fridays. I cut the strips apart, mix them up, and she reads the emergent reader and puts them back in order. Of course, the pictures give her a huge clue, but I also ask her to read the words again.
She loves, loves, loves to sing each sight word song and then find all the times the sight word is in the song (each one is different with the Updated Bundle Pack). During her rest time, I can hear her in her room singing away. We sing them while waiting in line at the grocery store, too. This girls LOVES music!!
We have found several kinds of variations of the sight word poke page through Instagram (#readingthealphabet) and we have been sent a few via email. It’s so cool to see others taking the curriculum and adapting it for their own child. So far, she’s poked them and placed stickers all over hers (great for fine motor), but we’re going to be trying some of the other variations soon!
I’ve created a little short cut to save us on ink for each letter, too. Instead of printing off the syllable clip and count cards for counting syllables, I just took some wooden clothespins and labeled several 1, 2, 3, and 4. We just re-use the picture cards and clip on them. 🙂
She LOVES the tracing pages from her Handwriting Notebook and will choose these even when it’s not “school time”. She likes to make little rhymes or sayings as she works. It’s quite funny. You can see her in action on Instagram.
She’s really good at sorting the pictures by their beginning sound (we either use our standard pocket chart or our table top pocket chart) and likes me to try and trick her by throwing in other pictures sometimes. Anything to make it game-like!
More about Reading the Alphabet:
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~Becky
Nancy "Mimi" Taylor says
October 19, 2014 at 11:16 amI adore these ideas! My six year old grandson is having difficulty with some of his sight words and his weekly spelling list, so I’ve been looking for new strategies to help him. I think he’ll find these activities very engaging.