I started LR with my son about 3 weeks ago. Because of all the app upgrades and program updates, he has seen a lot of the first 15 lessons. I am sure they must have been repeated more then once.
But yet, I can’t say that he has master these words, eventhough he was exposed to them a lot. He was playing the new games on the little reader ipad version, and he missed out a lot of them.
he knows all his letter sound, and I think he is starting to get the point of blending. But the sight words don’t seem to work.
Can LR really work when used with an older child? Should I still keep going?
3 weeks can be a short time to be on the program. For my child, at first he knew the words and didn’t like to admit he knew them and didn’t like to be tested on them (nobody likes to be tested). Other times he was finger happy and just wanted to press any key on the iPad. I would suggest that you consider to keep doing Little Reader until your child gives you cues that he doesn’t want to do it anymore. Another thing may be to try printing out the cards and showing two while asking…“which one says…” and see if he picks out the correct one.
Hi neptune,
this are just my personal five cents on the subject… I started LR with my older son when he was 1.5 yrs old, he enjoyed it, but never seemed to ´learn´ anything. We stopped doing it for some time and than we picked it up again… I also had physical flashcards and readers, but he simply never got the point until we started with phonics. Now at 4 yrs. old he reads pretty much everything, the sight words and the words he can sound out… All that to say, I´m sure LR helped, but he just wasn´t a ´sight-reading´ kid. I think every child is different and I wouldn´t get discouraged after three weeks. 2.5 yrs is a good age and you might be surprised what your child is learning even though he doesn´t ´show´ it. My kids sometimes surprise me saying or reading a word in one of the three languages we are learning, that I just don´t remember teaching them… I imagine that basics are laid and from now on they will fly…
It may be to early at this point. Kids are all different and some will show progress earlier and others later. For my two boys it was also very different but both are reading well now. My oldest is 6 years old and he devours Enid Blyton books because she’s one of his favourite authors right now. My youngest is 3 years and he reads short books and likes to read the words on signs and posters.
I learned my lesson the hard way with my eldest son. When he was 5 months old, I started signing with him. I stopped after a month when he did not sign back. I thought he was “too young”. When he was nearly a 1 year old, he signed “fish” and pointed to some fish in a pond. Even though we had not been signing for nearly 6 months!
So my philosophy now is, just do it (as Nike says) and expect nothing. Your child will surprise you when you least expect it. Good luck!
I have started him on phonics also. Sometimes, I have the feeling that he might be more interested by that. But I will keep using LR anyways.
I was just not sure how it could work with older kids, but I have found a few threads about LR and older children. So hopefully, it is going straight in
I am using LR French with my 4 and a half years old. We are on Day 8 and he chose the words or pictures in the game section right every time! LR works for older children. To me, age does not matter. What matter most is your child’s language skills.
BTW, my son have used LR English since he was a toddler.
Hi Neptune, I started with my girl about that age. Being older we are not able to do it every day or twice a day just due to being out of the house more. I know if I started earlier she would be reading by now. My DD did not take to it first. At all. Now she asks for it often. She also hid what she knew for a long time. I think it took a couple of months for us to settle into it.
On reflection LR is something very different to how we engaged (I used to try to keep her away from my laptop!), and it was something for us both to get used to. I neatly stopped doing it because I thought I had left it too late. But as I sat back and stopped looking for results (which was not easy for me!) she kind of got into it. She did not like testing and even now with the games will sometimes press every other word and leave the correct one until last deliberately (she thinks this is hilarious - I try really hard to bite my tongue!), but even that is showing she knows the correct one! She is not reading fluently yet but knows lots of word, even ones I have no idea how she learned. Since the Word Split section on LR she has started covering words in her books and asking what different sections of the words mean - she is directing the learning. She does not (audibly) blend and sight reads most words she knows but seems to be working out the word sounds in her own way.
Doing LR has also helped me to be more consistent with introducing her to words so we play I spy with phonics sounds and letters and digraphs often for example. I have phonics and sight word flash cards that I flash up a couple times most days. She is proud that she recognises more and more. Because I know she does not like testing sometimes I do not even ask her to read them, just present them to her, read them aloud and put them away. We also do apps like the Reading Eggs ones.
My point is that what LR has done is helped me bring words to her, helped me be confident in introducing literary to her. I think really that she will teach herself in her own way and I am just providing the stimulus with a good measure of consistency. It has become part of our mummy-daughter interaction instead of me trying to get her to progress in this area. Because the destination (learning to read and love reading) is inevitable I am just enjoying the journey!
By the way - we have just started French too (she is now over three) and she has really taken to it to the point that I have started her in group French lessons for children (La Jolie Ronde) and am trying to bring my school level French out to air and may do a refresher course so we can speak it together.
