Category: Reading

The Value in Reading Below Level Readers

4/29/2016

Usually when I read book with my lad, I read above his reading level, but lately we've been reading from a reader called "Paths to Adventure". It's part of the A Beka reading program. I picked it up somewhere cause I like readers. :)

The stories were simple (expected that).
What I didn't expect was my lad's interest.

It caught me off-guard how interested he was in these simple stories and the questions...oh my!

"MOM! is that story true?"
"Mom, why do you think he did that?"
"Mom that was a nice story, I liked that one. Did you like it mom?"

As I sat down tonight I pondered this whole thing, about my boys' interest and all his questions.

I have to wonder.
1. if the lower level meant he could really focus on the basics of the story and therefore they caught his attention more.
2. if the lower level stories don't have all vocabulary and bigger words, which broke the story down into more easily understood pieces.
3. if the simplicity of the story conveyed truths in a more straight-forward fashion.

I don't know.

I do know that was completely caught off-guard with his interest in the stories and the poems found within the pages of this reader. It was a good thing.

So the upshot of all this is ...... Don't pass up those below level books.
You just might be surprised how interesting they are.

Review: Logic of English, Essentials 2nd Ed. and Reader Set

3/29/2016

Even though I don't use the Essentials 2nd Edition with the Essential Reader Set by Logic of English the way it is officially meant to be used (at least according to the teacher's manual) it is one of my favourite language arts programs. Sight words, phonics, phonemes, spelling rules, morphemes, games, and fun ways to help struggling readers.. it's great! Let me tell you why.

First off, let me tell you what I received from Logic of English for this review. Introducing the Essentials 2nd Edition with the Essential Reader Set.

All the above and MORE! I also received the Essential Readers. It's a four part PDF download.. teacher's manual, student workbook and two different layouts of the reader that accompanies the lessons. I did add the teachers to the one file so I could more easily distinguish the teacher's manual from the other files.

How did we use it?
We did a little bit of work in the workbook. Not a whole lot of work as my lad IMMEDIATELY started to stress out about it, so I did what I do and I backed off, I know he'll learn the material, we'll just do it differently. :)

The point of Logic of English is to teach children to learn the sounds, and with the sounds, use them as ways to learn how to spell better. THIS is the hook for my lad. At age 10, he is strongly desiring this year to learn how to spell better. So we are learning to spell better and using this is a medium to learn spelling rules and breaking words into parts, which means learning the sounds and so forth.

So what we do is take four cards... spellings rules, phonograms, grammar and morphemes. Each week four cards that we read over and discuss. We'll talk about other words that sound the same, we do a spelling list based on the words written on the cards, we talk about how many words come from Latin and if you understand the BASE of a word, it helps you know how to spell it better If you sound out a word into it's parts and figure out what part you know how to spell.. before you know it you can spell the rest of the word if you understand the basic rules of how the parts fit together.

i cannot say HOW MUCH I love their cards. Love them. They work well for us. Focusing four cards is a lower key approach to helping a lad learn. I can read the book and rework how to do the lessons via question form throughout the week.

I do have to tell you about a part of the program that was a hit. AND I didn't expect it to be. The Essential reader. Drawing pictures, reading poems, making up silly quips, reading lists of words and listening to the sounds, breaking words into parts. This reader worked and I was amazed! Doing the cursive led my son to ask "mom, can you get me more capital letter cursive to do? I don't really understand those ones yet."

I have to tell you this.. it was FUN to see my lad so thoroughly enjoying himself with a language arts program that deals with sounds. He doesn't fight it, he's just simply queries "what am I doing today mom"?

I would now like to point out a couple of helpful products that are included.
This double sided quick reference chart spelling analysis card. A good way for my lad to remember how to work his way through an unknown word. (good for his mom too)

Tile cards for playing games, and quick reference chart. By the by... ziploc bags work wonderfully for storing the different flash cards and game pieces.

double sided, three page unit, with all the rules in one quick reference area.

Imagine playing your way through spelling words. That idea work for you? Works for my lad as well. :) He knows he's practicing sounds (which is hard) but he's learning to spell words... Which ... is good. :) So it works.

Even though I don't really use the Student workbook with my lad, I wanted to take a moment to show you a bit about the teacher's manual. You need one to do the other, and teacher's manual walks you through how to use the student manual AND for those who do things a tad differently, it teaches you how to do that too (if you read around it a little). :) What to say, what to expect, and how things should look after you are done teaching. It's great to have it all broken down for those times when I am unsure myself.

Is it harder perhaps to do things in a way varies from the teacher's manual? In some ways yes, but not really. The set up, the examples, the walk-throughs... even doing it differently, this is one of the finest spelling curricula that I have ever met. I like it!

Product Details:
Received: Homeschool Spelling/Reading Program
Title: Essentials 2nd Edition with the Essential Reader Set.
Vendor: Logic of English
Grade Range: varies, can teach three levels at once
Price: $198 for complete set.

This set contains vol. 1 materials, vol. 2 coming 2017.

Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLogicOfEnglish/ @LogicOfEnglish
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LogicofEnglish
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/logicofenglish/

Back To Homeschool - What to Read

8/11/2015

Reading. To me and my hubby, it's an essential part of life. It's helps to define who we are. My boy is learning this joy of picking up a book and reading. "Mom, is it okay if I read for a bit before I go to sleep?" was his question to me last night. Made my heart smile it did.

Books surround us.
Some of it is twaddle, some living books, some good fiction, some excellent non-fiction, books to suit any fancy, mood and moment.    Science fiction, mystery, good drama etc.

It becomes a struggle to figure out what to read at times doesn't it?

My approach to books is simply this... if you like it, read it.
If you like reading, then you read.   One book will lead to another.   Sometimes a book you read will convince you NOT to read that type of book again, and sometimes a book will inspire excitement and curiousity or just plain contentment at a book well read.

My lad and I read copious amounts of books.

We have a book we read at breakfast, books to be read between lessons, and books to read at bed time.    Books are an integral part of our lives.

So what do we read?
Fiction: all sorts of fiction.   Garfield comics, Warrior cats, Dear Canada, mystery books, historical fiction, picture books, if it's a book and looks interesting, we check it out.    The worst that happens is we say "Meh, don't like it" and stop reading it.

Non-fiction: again, all sorts.   Most of the time we pick a book and read a two page spread a day, sometimes we like what we're learning so much that we go on rabbit trails learning more about it.   Worksheets and CD's and online learning can always wait for another day.... but that "I'm into this very much at this moment" can't always wait. :)

Some of the books we are reading lately.
Mrs Quack. We are gradually working through this series.
Monks and Mystics: History written in story form.
1000 fantastic Science Facts: one page spread a day... space, travel and more. LOTS of questions and lots of "Ok Google (fill in the blank)
Natural world: we actually just finished this and we learned tons about geography and various animals.

One of the interesting things I've uncovered is that the more we read non-fiction and fiction books, the more questions my son has and the more he makes connections between things that I would have expected.    For instance in the warrior cat series when the cats had to deal with a solar eclipse. Once the lad realized what was going on he was "talking" to the cats in the book telling them not to worry so much, that the sun would come back.

What sort of connections are you hoping to make for your children this year?
I know I'm interested to see where our reading will take us this year.
Aren't you?

This post is part of a blog hop.

Here are a few others writing.
Erin @ For Him and My Family
Lori @ At Home: where life happens
Margaret @ Creative Madness Mama
Nicole @ Some Call It Natural
Crystal @ Crystal Starr
Bonnie @ Write Bonnie Rose
Shawna @ Tenacity Divine
Carol @ Home Sweet Life
Kelli @ Adventure Homeschool
Jacquelin @ A Stable Beginning
Leah Courtney @ As We Walk Along the Road

if you want to see more folks writing, check them out here.

Real Life Homeschooling - Reading

4/6/2015

I read books. It's what I do.   You will never find me far some thing that I can read. (except when I am on a long walk in the bush or something). :) But then I'll have a book sitting in the car. :)

I am raising a boy child whom I dearly love. Who LOVES to tells stories. Who LOVES to have books of all sorts read to him. He simply adores it.   "Mom, don't stop reading" is an oft repeated phrase. "Mom, will you keep me company as I do ______ and read something to me?"   (now...who could turn down that offer???   :)

BUT this story loving .. does SO not actually like to READ the books himself.

Sometimes it feels like the world is screaming at me
"What? He doesn't like to read?!?!?! Whatever did you do wrong???"

Whatever is a homeschooling mom to do??
Like seriously.   I scratch my head about it somedays, but most days I do what I do which to .. TALK.

I talk.   I explain that we just need to find the genre of books that are not too hard and yet are interesting enough for him to want to read. I explain, that I expect him to be a mix between dad and I... a lover of mysteries and a love of facts!    And that yes, Minecraft books count. :)   So while we search for his genre we continue to read.

It amazes me sometimes just what books tickle his fancy. Take for instance this book on Antarctic Antics.

We had so much fun reading this book. :)    Answering riddles, following the life of a penguin all done in poem form.   Just fun. It's good to hear a giggles from a boy child. AND simple enough that he could take a gander at the odd riddle and see if he could flummox his mother! :)

But just as it surprises me about the book that he does like, it surprises me sometimes what books he does not like. Recently we read a book called "Curious Critters". He loved the pictures in it, but the text.. my... he was just not happy. When I pointed out the factual info at the end of the book he asked why the author couldn't have just written the text with the pictures like that.   I hear I had thought he'd really like it.   Goes to show I am continuing to learn what he likes.

What we have tracked down is he doesn't like sappy stories, he likes mysteries, and books with facts in it.   The more we read, the more we learn...and who knows... maybe before long we'll have a boy who loves reading as much as his mom and dad do. :)

So tell me.... if you have a boy in the 8-11 year old range, what would you have them read????

Discover real life in other homeschools with the Schoolhouse Review Crew bloggers! Join the blog hop to read more!

Treasuring Life's Blessings Double O Farms Simple Living Mama Fried Clams and Sweet Tea This Sweet Life A Net In Time Counting Pinecones Some Call It Natural Kingdom Academy Homeschool Debbie's Homeschool Corner

Books we read together

8/31/2014

My lad and I have read books together since he was just a wee one. We used to snuggle on a bed together, then we graduated to snuggling on the couch, now he plays on the floor and I lay on the bed and I read. Sometimes I can convince him to read to me (but not very often). :)

So what do we read?

Anything and everything. :) So let me catch my breathe for a moment and I'll see what I can show you about our books.

click image to go to other blogs for more books to read. :)

Any post about chapter books would be remiss without talking about the Warriors series. Erin Hunter wrote these books about the clans of cats. Fascinating well written series. Has some odd grammatical things at times, but easily read over. We've gotten a friend hooked on them as well. The lad's goal.. OWN THEM ALL!!!!! (and he has the money to get the last series). :) Everyone loves them who listens to the tale. Also has the side benefit of allowing discussion about how to have faith, how one might lose faith, how the faith of the cats often mirrors that of the First nation folks, and such like. One could be bothered by it or use it as a teaching tool.

We've read... A nest for Celeste, Treasure seekers by Nesbitt, Island of the blue dolphins, and the Riley Mae books (written for girls, but my lad likes the mystery).

We've gone through the Junior Clue club books (one chapter a day). Animal Ark (easy read books these).. there are tons, we've only read rabbit, guinea pig and cat ones.

We've been reading the Illustrated history books that we got for free off the Kindle. The lad really likes these books and generally asks so many questions I need to ask him to make a choice.. talk and research or listen and get ready for bed? He usually chooses getting ready for bed as it means MORE books to read. :) I don't know if they are still free but we downloaded at least 10 not that long ago. :)

We are reading Danny Orlis and the Sugar Creek gang books as well. Sometimes they make us laugh, sometimes they make us think and something they just seem .. well.. "MOM? Why didn't they just go to the police?" It's like the obvious answer sometimes eludes them.

OH! I almost forgot.. The Borrowers. We have about five in the series and they provide enjoyment and wondering.. hmm.. if I were small how would I get around, how would I do .... (and the list goes on).

Anyways, we don't always read for learning.
We often read just for fun as that's part of the joy of learning to read right? Having the FUN of it. :)

Review: Essential Skills Advantage

8/26/2014

You know, I am SO blessed doing reviews for the Homeschool Crew? We just finished our subscription to one reading program and we were offered a different reading program called Essential Skills Advantage. Just when my son was looking for a change, we got right what we needed. Isn't it great how God works it all out? We have thoroughly enjoyed our review period withEssential Skills Advantage and plan to keep using this reading program for children. :)

Let me walk you through Essential Skills Advantage so you know what to expect. :)

First you have the login screen. There are two screens, the parental login and then a student login. The computer saves the parental one, but doesn't the student one. It would be helpful if they did, but I suppose if you have more than one child using it, you'd want the security of knowing they are doing ONLY their work and not anyone else's. :)

This brings you to another screen that looks like this. This is where the different categories are laid out. Changing categories is such as easy thing to do. We mostly used grade three, but we jumped around a bit using some grade two, some grade four. So easy to work with. We plan to use more areas as we continue throughout the year.
As you can see it offers the following

Complete Reading (offered for grades K-3)
Fun with spelling (1-3)
Vocabulary Builder (4-6)
Spell Master (grades 4-6)
Grammar (grades 3-5)
Spelling Stumpers (two levels offered)

Let's say you've chosen to work with grade three. This is the next screen you will see. As you can see we are half way through vocabulary builder. My son does three sections every day. Some take more time, some take less. It gives him a definitive number to focus on though.

Each section opens into another grouping. When you complete an area it lights up with stars. Those stars show how well you did. My son's goal is to get three stars under each category. The program works with the children giving them a warning blip if they choose the wrong answer, and often gives them a second try.

I chose one category and deliberately did a few things wrong to show you a feature my boy has really picked up on. Do you see the bar at the bottom? it has different colours: green, orange and blue? The blue shows the question left to be answered. The green is correct, the orange is incorrect.

When your child is done an area, they get a screen that shows their overall result.

If you want to see how you are doing in the overall area, you can click on the yellow star and it will bring you to a page like this. The stars show the score they go, they can see how far through the program they are with a numeric value and a bar graph.

I like that this online learning program has a variety of methods to teach the children.   You get yes/no questions, write in the answer, drag correct answer, click on the write answer etc.    In fact they have over 20,000 activities to keep children engaged and interested. Starting from kindergarten all the way up to grade six.

Our opinions:
I like the program. The variety of activities keeps in engaging for my son.   The instructions are clear.    I like that if he doesn't understand what is being asked he can click on the "?" mark in order to hear the instructions again. I like that he doesn't complain (unless he's doing reading comprehension) about doing ESA. He likes it and does well at it and it is good at helping him choose the correct answer. I like that he is learning to read even better.      I also like that it challenges him a bit. He likes to do things verbally and this program forces him to read out his answers, and then look for the answer if he doesn't know it (particularly in the reading comprehension area).

I did struggle with the "forced" to get 100% in order to advance that some of the activities have. There are pros and cons to this approach particularly if the default is the only other answer. Then it becomes a bit of a guessing game for the child, and are they really learning?   But on the flip side, for the child who is really focused on getting it right the first time, it gives them a boost to look a bit harder at the question being asked.   it worked both ways for my boy depending on the activity involved.

For at one of the activities I heard frustration from my lad. "MOM!   Why don't they put them farther apart?"    And when I checked I did notice it was true... some of the spacing is a little tight if you aren't steady with your clicking.   And when you KNOW what you meant to click on and you missed one boy child gets a bit frustrated and will wail "Mom, I know the answer, but the computer says I'm wrong!!!!". :)   So he's learning to exercise a bit more control.

My son's thoughts: "It's a good program, it's fairly easy, and there's really nothing I don't like about it. Sometimes it's a bit annoying, when it gives you really hard questions."

Product Details:

Vendor: Essential Skills Advantage.
Product: Their complete on-line program. Premium package.
Price: 14 day free trial, $9.99/month. if you sign up before October 1st, they will give you a 50% off discount of your monthly fee with the code TOS50.
If you would like to work with a sponsored version of the program (so has ads and missing some features) you can go to ESA Learning for a free version.
Age Range:This is idea for K-6 or for remedial work for older students.

A clarification from John from ESA.
"I did want to clarify that the content of the free program is the same as the premium program. The difference relates to the parent portal. No ads are displayed to the children. Ads are displayed on the sponsors landing page and in our weekly newsletter. Here’s an example of our landing page www.LearnWithESA.com/JohnLennie. Here’s an example of our newsletter http://bit.ly/1pcFs0b."

To read what other crew members thought, click on the link below or HERE.

Essential Skills Advantage Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skillsadvantage
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SkillsAdvantage
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/SkillsAdvantage/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/103081493030185524648/about

Review: Logic of English

5/13/2014

I wanted to do this review and yet I was a bit scared to sign up for it. The review called for doing two lessons a week of 1.5 hours at a time... I know my boy, I know what he thinks with reading/writing.. and this was a solid concern for me. I wondered how I was going to do it, hubby assured me that I should be able to break it up over the course of a day so I was encouraged to try it out.

I invite you to stop in and see how I made Logic of English work for us. :)

Product Details.

Vendor: Logic of English
Product reviewed: Essentials: Logic of English Complete Set
I received the Manuscript version.
Age Range: Age 7 to adult.
Price: $243.00 for the complete set.
Available in Manuscript or Cursive editions.

We received Logic of English Essentials the complete set, for manuscript.

Due to my son's styling and artistic endeavors with his words it may be hard to see that these are actual words. :) just shows he was having fun doing his Logic of English lessons. :)

What you get in the Complete set

Essentials Teacher’s Manual (non-consumable)
Essentials Student Workbook in Cursive or Manuscript (consumable)
Spelling Journal (consumable)
Basic Phonogram Flash Cards
Advanced Phonogram Flash Cards
Spelling Rule Flash Cards
Grammar Rule Flash Cards
Phonogram & Spelling Rule Quick Reference Chart
Phonogram & Spelling Game Book
2 sets of Game Cards

Before I used it, I went through the teacher's manual. I felt completely daunted and thought "what in the world did I sign up for?". I dithered a bit, gathering my thoughts, read a couple of posts on our review board and realized that I wasn't alone in my thinking so gathered up my nerve and plunged in. It wasn't as horrid as I thought it would be! (aren't you glad to hear that?). :)

The lessons start with just reviewing the sounds of the alphabet but by paying attention to the shape of the mouth and what your teeth and tongue are doing.

it actually went fairly smoothly though my son fought the "why did I have to think about my tongue and the shape of my mouth". UNTIL ..... (and this is an important clincher) he learned the difference between "F" "T" and "TH". He has ALWAYS struggled with those sounds and now he knows how they are formed! COOL! We were hooked. Now on to the meat of the program......

How we used this program.

I have to admit, I tried the 1.5 hours in this house. Doing it in one shot, doing it over the course a day.... The result was this: one unhappy dad because of one VERY stressed out son. NOT WORTH IT. A stressed boy child, causing a stressed dad, which just makes the whole household a mess. So I said.. I have to make this work. I know I"m not the only family who will struggle with the intensity, so how can I make this work for us....There must be a way.

So I backed things up.    We did one lesson a week.   Doesn't seem like much, but it was highly effective and since there is SO MUCH information in the quality teacher's manual it worked for us.
We did about 15-20 minutes at a stretch and the result was this:
A lad happily working, no stress, learning! WOOT WOOT!!! Do you see that look of concentration on his face? (in the pic below)
I now have a lad asking me "Mom, how do I write _____?"
The other day he composed a song and was helping me copy out the words for it.

I am STOKED!   My boy... wants to write and read more!!!!   WOOT WOOT!

When I asked my son what he thought of the program and how we made it work for us I got the following the response:

"MOM, I like this!".

"What?   You like this program????" (I have to admit I was surprised!)

"Yes".

"Why?" I queried.

"I read better mom. I can spell words better too!"

He's learning why the English Language is written as it is. And why it's confusing sometimes, and he's not stressing out over it. :) I am SO pleased.

I have to admit... sounds are hard in this household.
They just are.
I find them hard myself and I am often found mispronouncing words.
My son just doesn't overall "GET IT" when it comes to sounds, but with this program we are both learning, and I like that he is starting to get it better. :)

ONE THING I wish they had was an actual sound component, as quite honestly.. I don't know how to make the some of the different sounds that letters makes. I don't. I'd love to actually be able to hear someone say them. I don't know what the logistics of doing that would be though as how do you contend with accents and regional differences in sound?

One of my friends used the program with my son while I was laid up recently from surgery. She is VERY interested in getting the program to use with her children. She found it easy to use, likes that she can use games with all her children, and that she can do it all in an hour or so, or she can break it down into shorter segments like I do.

Essentials is a systematic system to teach spelling, reading, writing and grammar.

So just how do the lessons break down?

Each lesson is clearly laid out in the teacher's manual.

I'm going to use one of our recent lessons as an example.
At the start of the lesson there is a box that how what will be the focus of the lesson.
For lesson three that means phonograms "er, or, ea, sh", exploring syllables, spelling rule 4 and grammar will be irregular plurals and non-count nouns.

Part One starts with a list of items needed: flash card for the phonograms, spelling rule card 4, phonogram game cards.

Then off to learn the phonograms one card at a time. Learning the sounds of each.

Syllables.   Learn the shape your mouth makes with different sounds, figure out what your tongue is doing as well.    Watch what your mouth does as you make vowels and consonants, The opening and closing of your mouth is a beat.   And from there the lesson goes on to explain what a syllable is.     And then one learns how to listen and sound the syllables in a word.   (my son was intrigued by this and practiced several times with different words like Fireheart and Cinderpelt. " Mom.. They have three syllables right?"
"Yep!" was my response.

Spelling Rule 4 is introduced.   Long Vowel sounds at the end of Syllables. Once again The warrior clan cats were once again used to help reinforce this.   Tigerstarm Thunderclan etc. :) So nice to be able to use a favourite series to reinforce what learning is happening. :)

Part two calls for doing a spelling list.

My approach as to say the spelling word, use it in a sentence and then as carefully as I could enunciate the word.   I wouldn't correct his spelling I would just say the list. Then I would go back and say the word, use it in a sentence, and the spell it out loud. The lad would tell me yes or no and then we'd compare the two, trying to sound out what the difference was. The lad found that to be very helpful.    He really liked the last part of the spelling list when he needed to come up with new words based on the word used. Sometimes it was a struggle for him... like.. MOM... YOU can't make a word from seven!!!   So I'd challenge him a bit on that.. and eventually he'd guess something    We would often do this part walking up and down the stairs.   For some reason that action took the pressure off and he would just think and walk and then say various words to go with the spelling list.

Part three covers grammar .. reviewing what a noun is, and introduces irregular plurals and non-count nouns. This area also includes dictation and composition to be done orally. Vocabulary is also developed.

That is the basic set up of a complete lesson. The approach that worked best in our household was to break up a lesson over the course of 2-4 days. It worked well and allowed for me to find books that would emphasis the different phonograms being worked on. I have a series of books from Scholastic choice used to helping learn phonics. Pictured below are two of them. This systematic phonics program works well for us in this household at this point. :)

My Final Analysis.

Logic of English is a definitive go to resource in our household.
We will continue to work our way through the book.
I am very grateful that we had a chance to review this very solid curriculum, developed by people who definitely have a passion for helping people learn how to read well.

I do hope that you will click on the banner below to read what other TOS reviewers though of the Logic of English products. We did review several of their products.

Essentials: Logic of English Complete Set
Rhythm of Handwriting Cursive - Complete Set
Rhythm of Handwriting Manuscript - Complete Set
Foundations, Level A also REUSABLE RESOURCES. and some received the Doodling Dragons App
Foundations, Level B
Foundations, Level C
Phonics with Phonograms App

Did you know that you can also find Logic of English on various social media platforms?

Facebook.
Pinterest.
Youtube.
Twitter.

Reading, Constellations and more

2/26/2014

Today we got off to a late start with our schooling. I've been dealing with a headache for the past 10 days... doc tells me it's a particular type of migraine that is hard to get rid of. :) It causes dizziness which means headaches, your head ache with makes you dizzy. In time it will leave. Makes it slower getting going though.

Anyways, we read from the warriors over breakfast. The lad was able to recall facts well from previous reading we had done. Then upstairs to work on the names of Christ study that we are doing. Today we learned about Yahweh Shamma (i may have spelled that wrong). The Lord is There. The authors connected it with Immanuel... God with us which I thought was rather cool.

From there we moved on to doing Story of the World where we learned about the Grand Canal in China. Saved China (as a whole nation), cost to Sui Dynasty their leadership (high taxes, increased poverty, death, poor working conditions). I think it's amazing what they did... despite the cost to the people involved. Five million people, six years, 1200 miles I think. All of China now connected. Amazing!

Then we read from our science book and were inspired to make our own Constellation viewer. This was rather fun to do. :) We fit Reading Kingdom into the mix as well.

The lad then worked on his math ... doing it through IXL since by this time I'm running on empty and just need to lay my head down for a spell. We had lunch.... I did the easy chips and cheese thing, the lad had some pizza. We finished the day with the lad doing his 20 minutes of reading. Today his book was "Wood Frog".

All in all a nap did me a world of good afterwards and the lad had fun just relaxing with Skyrim for a while (he's learning to read some of the options on his own as well). :)

T is for Trying to Read. Blogging through the alphabet

2/21/2014

My son is an emerging reader. It's been a bit of a road for us. He struggles with hearing sounds... learning phonics was a bit of a bust for us, so we use reading kingdom as a daily activity...it's helping the best of everything we've done so far. Love the program and he thinks it's fun as well. :) The most important thing is... it's doing the trick for him. Nothing else I tried really worked and tried a variety of things but many them relied on a phonics approach and for my lad that just wasn't doing the job.. and that's my fall back position (how I learned) so it's hard to try to rethink it.

We're recently added reading for 20 minutes every day. We have these readers from Science Life Cycle books that are subject oriented that take approximately 20 minutes to read with some talking time in the midst of it. I was very impressed tonight with the lad's ability to read a book about "Chickens" tonight.

It's just so nice to see him improving.

We play a variety of word games when we can... anything from.. give me a noun, an adjective and a verb... okay.. can you read this story? Many times they are funny which suits this humour filled 8 year old just fine. :)

The other day I pulled out some letter tiles that I picked up from somewhere and I challenged him first... Can you make these magnetic words plural?

Then we started having fun with the tiles. The intrigue of doing this wore off quickly.

I spelled a word... and said.. so .. think you can change it to another word?
He did!
Then I changed it.
He changed it.

here he is, thinking a new word through...

That morphed into the lad trying to spell a word he thought he knew. It was a fairly long word THUNDER.. he spelled it as tondir.. pretty close I said... but it's
TH... UN...D...ER... (I really really emphasized the sounds...and yeah.. that's me falling back on phonics). :) And together we spelled it correctly - but those TH's are hard you know.. when you can't really hear that h (so he tells me.. the "T" and "TH" sound the same.. Just like "F" sounds like T and TH. He got Clan down quite easily after asking if it was a k or a c. (good question eh?)

The cat warriors books are current favourites of the lad, so he spent the next 10-20 minutes making words from the book.. Like Kit, kits, hunt, claw, clan, mice, bugs, hunts

Then the lad asked... Mom.. do you think we have enough words to make a sentence? Go ahead, try ... you won't know unless you do try. :) As you can see.. he succeeded! WOOT WOOT! :)

Berrykit is a funny little, very courageous kitten in the clan and the lad is just captivated by him and laughs at his antics often. He needed help spelling Berry but otherwise managed to do this on his own.

I am ever so pleased with how my lad is coming along. I really really try hard not to be bothered by folks who critic and comment on how their child learned to read at age 31/2 or how they never even had to teach their child how to read. Sometimes reading can be a challenge, and I'm so glad my boy is meeting this particular challenge in his life.

Come join with us as we blog through the alphabet over at Ben And Me. This week we are working on the letter T.

Today's learning: reading and evergreens

12/13/2013

This morning I had the dubious joy of listening to my son clearly and repeatedly state to the computer it was saying the word JUMP wrong.   The computer was saying JUMp, and the lad was saying NO.. It's JUMP. Say the P say the P.

It's funny, but good. My lad often struggles with hearing words correctly and proper enunciation is important for him.

Reading Kingdom apparently eventually got it correctly.

Then Simple Schooling is doing their 12 days of Christmas giveaway right now.
I gave the lad a choice between doing bears or finishing off our evergreen study, he chose evergreens. We learned a lot about evergreens, did you know that redwood trees can live for 2000 years?   Impressive eh?