When our son was born we were encouraged by a family to put names on everything - the fridge, the door, the pictures etc. We did this and our son would say the word when we pointed at the object from very young. What we didn’t know is that the font was too small to have made much of an impact! So I have recently redone all the names to a much bigger font and stuck them everywhere. While my son was in the bathroom the other day I heard him saying all the words - sink, toilet, shower, shelf etc and when I peeped in he was looking at the right words. He is older so he obviously knows what these things are, but perhaps with bigger words and seeing them all the time, this too my help him along with his reading.
We have also got a story that is his favourite - Thomas Train - and we put it on to Little Reader and got him to ‘read’ it. We now show it to him on LR everyday and then get him to look at the book and ‘read’ it. He knows the story by heart - but I point out each word as he says it and am hoping that it will all click into place soon. He loves the idea of saying what’s on the page and is so proud of himself and tells his dad he is now ‘reading so well!’ Such a cutie. And what wonderful tools Brillkids are giving us to aid our childrens learning!!! Big thanks to you all.
I have also recently made use of the flashcards on LR. I have never done flashcards with my son - so it’s quite exciting for him. What I have done is hauled out the Scrabble Game and we flash the cards - and then make the words - I only do the recently added ones for that day. So five words get spelled out and he matches the letters. Then we add up the numbers on the letters to see how much each word is, and then we pack it all away. It probably takes us 10 - 15 minutes a day, and I only do it once a day. It is a little frustrating getting him to concerntrate, but I have seen fine progress in this. And when we do ‘reading’ often he stops and says - ‘that’s my words!’ This to me is much better than the previous - ‘there’s the letter a!’ which was what was happening all the time!
Putting names on everything is great. I did that with my ESL classroom. If it helped with teaching a second language, why not use it to teach the first language? I will try that with my son. Thanks for the idea.
It’s funny to stumble on this thread - just yesterday as we were brushing teeth in the bathroom mirror, I had a flash of post-its stuck to everything! I’m going to start labelling tomorrow.
Thanks for the extra nudge!
Sure, go ahead. No harm in starting early. Everytime you pass a word during the day you could show him and say the word. Perhaps the writing could be a lot bigger so that he could see it well and perhaps if you had a colour printer you could print in red letters on bright yellow paper.
I label everything in 3" red letters. I got some “sentence strips” so I can write out longer words and they are taped up all over the house. I started touring preschools last fall and they had everything labeled and I thought it made sense. Our playroom now looks better than most preschools, but I guess it is our preschool. I love projects and being creative and it is fun to do projects that have such a great impact as well as being fun.
Boy, if I labeled everything in my house then my baby would be seeing, for instance, the word sofa about 20 times a day. I guess she would surely know the word sofa by the end of the week, if not earlier (or so it would seem).
TABS~~ Thanks for the scrabble idea! Also, would you be willing to share the Thomas story you put on LR?
Another idea for all of you… On our walls, I tape a hard copy of previous words we’ve done (moving them daily and cycling the words weekly). The ones that I’ve posted for him are definitely the ones that stick with him and he recognizes in a variety of ways (books, handwriting etc). We also play games such as “Can you show Teddy where xxx word?” Or "Can you bring Mommy “xxx”?. Now that we’ve moved onto couplets, we’re starting to put two words together on the wall. it’s only been two days, so he hasn’t caught on yet, but he still finds it fun. Eventually I’ll be posting short sentences instead of the words. I just need to get my words organized enough!!
So I have recently redone all the names to a much bigger font and stuck them everywhere. While my son was in the bathroom the other day I heard him saying all the words - sink, toilet, shower, shelf etc and when I peeped in he was looking at the right words. He is older so he obviously knows what these things are, but perhaps with bigger words and seeing them all the time, this too my help him along with his reading.
