I did not use ReadingBear directly because we use another language. So I prepared a powerpoint presentation using the concept I got from ReadingBear. It is here http://forum.brillkids.com/downloads/?sa=view;id=9287
Animated clip arts were very attractive to my two year old and generally he liked these presentations. I added few new words after every few days
At least I THINK that I was using your concept
Since ~ 12 months, I am also showing sight words but our learning is very relaxed. He is an active child, and my only long-term approach is “do Something every day, some exposure to written words and/or some new information”.
And now he (2,10) is reading. He is decoding unknown words consisting of 3 - 4 letters. If words are longer, he is guessing. With known words, he is reading couplets and triplets. I do not test; he is doing it without my request.
I am surprised because he is not talking very well. He is talking short simple sentences with rather wrong grammar. My first child (early talker, now 5,5) had much larger vocabulary and much larger collection of sight words but she started to read only at 4,5.
I also find it hard to find corresponding readers to go with reading bear. Right now I am using the Don Potter site but it doesn’t match up. I think it is a great idea to have readers to go along with it.
I just want to add that I don’t mind that there is a picture of a FAT Belly on there at all. I did think to myself “ha, I’ve never seen that in a children’s program before” but I don’t think it has to be removed and replaced.
I suppose this is the difference between a free on-line resource made from the love of reading rather than a mass produced product where they have to take anything out that could possible offend people other wise people wouldn’t buy the product. Its just one example of FAT and you skip past it fast enough that I don’t see it as a problem.
It did make me think “oh what else will I come across on here” and i guess that’s a good thing cos it keeps us on our toes more when we are showing our children things on the internet for the fist time.
We were in a cafe a few days ago. After finishing her snack, my toddler said, very loudly, “LOOK AT MY BIG FAT BELLY” over and over again! lol I blame you, DadDude! lol
As we were shopping, a man was walking towards us. When he was about 3 feet in front of us, my daughter says, (in that LOUD tone that only two year olds can just when you don’t want them to) “Oh, look Momma! That man has a fat belly, just like Reading Bear!!!” while pointing at the oncoming man. I think (hope) I saw a faint smile cross his face as he undoubtedly saw a look of horror on my face. :ohmy: We had talked about the fact that just because someone is fat, doesn’t mean that we say it out loud. I guess that part of the lesson didn’t stick. I did remind her of that fact again!
I hope i can get some advice here , my 4 years old can decode and read practically every word in reading bear but that 's it , even when showing him the word 20 imes he will sound it out then say it , also in books , he can read a whole paragraph sounding out every word then saying it , and his comprehension is not bad . he cannot sight read . what can i do to help him ?? viv
You are not alone - my 3 year old is half way through reading bear and does exactly the same - absolutely no sight reading. I had hoped by simply practising over and over he would start remembering whole words but he must have decoded cat hundreds of times and still only knows it if he sounds the individual letters. I had no luck with flashcard reading when he was tiny, either.
I am doing flashcard games (eg. find the word/match word and picture) with 4-5 cards out at a time and he guesses by initial sound - he can choose between cat and bat but if there is rat and rub he will only know the answer by sounding out the words.
Sorry I can’t give you any answers but at least you know it is not entirely unusual.
Anyone who has any magic answers would be much appreciated lol
the problem with my son he would tell me mama we did this he doesn’t like repetitions he wants to move on to the next lesson , or whatever book he is reading , mama we did that , so early readers won’t work for him and practicing by repetition won’t work also . The same happened with his sister i felt we were stuck on the sounding out for long time before shoe could read fluently but by five she was reading very well and now at six she is very advanced reading way above her grade level with excellent comprehension , and her read aloud is very expressive . I just wonder if i can do something to speed it up , she had different caracter and didn’t mind practicing , he doesn’t like it
I haven’t figured this out yet and I went though this with my 6 year old too. My 4 year old is the same except he struggles sounding out the more difficult words due to an articulation delay. He making improvements there but I haven’t been through all the presentations with him. He actually reads on starfall well but everywhere else he sounds out and I think on starfall he guessing by context not reading. He made improvements since watching meet the sight words but he only knows the words in the video and there isn’t a lot. It is a frustrating stage. I was hoping teaching him to blend smoother since on reading bear there is pauses while they are blending and that affects speed when reading sentences or doing some of the AAS stuff would help but so far no. He so used to sounding out with pauses. My dd got through this phase somehow but it seemed like so much work and I don’t know what finally did it. At least I know I am not alone.
Mummyroo i spent the last hour on your blog , nikki is an adorable boy . Like you i was fascinated by montessori , i did teacher training course , i had very successful experience with doman with my first child ( specialneed ) , but i liked the hands on approach and developing independance in montessori . i spent lots of time making material , bought some and i am now the proud owner of beautiful montessori shelves hat unfortunately do not attract my kids much till later . my daughter at six is now enjoying some of the extensions of the sensoriel material . my 4 years old was always rough with them , and i kept taking them off the shelves thinking he is still not ready , he didn’t want to do anything with the knobless cylinders the montessori way , he wanted to roll them on the floor like cars . now at four he is still very active , has great imagination and do not really enjoy three step lessons and montessori presentations . Whenever i say i like to show you something , he and his sister before him would take the material from me and say mama i show you , and they do whatver they want with the material . I complained about this to a montessori teacher and he thought my kids need more discipline . my kids still learn so much but they choose to learn outdoors in their own way and i think it put them off me treating the montessori material like gold . now i changed my attitude and although i have a special shelf for sensoriel i started putting the material in basket and bring it over while they are playing and let them use it . Only when i allowed them to use the red rod to build mazes for their cars that those red rods got used .
i have all the beads material , bead cabinet but i deicded not to use them , since i am working with rightstart with my six years old , her younger borther was learning in the backround while playing and found it made more sense to introduce all numbers a la right start , 6 as 5+1 7 as 5+2 and using the abacus … instead of spending time with the colored beads . i used only the golden beads to demonstrate 10 100 1000 , but i cannot see my child sitting and learning skip counting by using the short and long bead chains in the bead cabinet . it is too slow and boring for them . there are many different ways to learn skip counting . So now my bead cabinet is packed with some other montessori material waiting for me to find the courage to let go and sale them .
i am writing this so you don’t really feel bad about not being able to have all the montessori material , in montessori time and the kids montessori has worked with didn’t have the learning opportunities our EL have . Yes i made sandpaper letters, moveable alphabet , but i found all i need is to spend time with my litle one playing with his small chalkboard and some kumon tracing cards . i was chocked when i decided to make more effort to teach him writing and sat with him telling him mama ket us try to write letters i write first , he said no he can write and asked me to name a letter , and we wnet through half of the alphabet , he didn’t trace , he didn’t copy from a model , he would stop think then write .This is a boy who loved the sand tray but not to trace letters but to create a dinosaur word or construction site for his vehicles. I just got tired from stopping him from misusing the montessori material .
so yes i have a montessori room full of material but we spend most of our learning time outside in the garden or cuddled up on the couch with a book . Not to feel all my effort was wasted i bring out like i said during playtime some material in a basket and let them explore it any way they like , if they like .
The only montessori material i never regret having and are used a lot are the puzzle and pin maps maps and my continent boxes . my kids are fascinated with all those miniatures from all over the words and books like children like me , and atlas ,many fiction books from all over the words .
their practical life activities they do it all the time ( in a messy way ) in the kitchen , in the garden in their sandpit . I was so proud of my sound activity , they used it once and as soon as i turned my back those containers were open and my kids decided to use the content in their play kitchen
thinking about it our kids have soft mozart , LM , they are already stimulated music wise , do they really need those sound eggs to shake and sort out ??
Anyway I am always happy to find another EL mum from UK . We live in Gambia in west Africa but we get our main supply of almost everything from UK , We have family and friends flying back and forth almost every month.I could use your help locating some of the material needed since I am not able to go out and shop by myself
anyway my post is getting long , i just wanted to say hi and happy to know a friend from Uk , looking forward to read more about all he fun you are having with nikki xxx
Thanks Bella. Its always nice to speak to someone who is from the UK (or using UK materials at least!) - we seem to be such a small minority!
I’ve been trying to introduce some Montessori beads for ‘maths play’ and they are mostly ignored. I bought a set which you have to hang the beads under the number - I think he only likes them for the challenge of putting them on the hook. Montessori maths is definitely progressing too slow for him, but some of the maths bits are ok when he doesn’t want my help. Mostly, he likes the materials that need fine motor skills but isn’t really that bothered by them. I have though I need to be a bit stricter
I also would love the geography materials and if not for the fact that they are very expensive and we live in a small flat with no spare storage space…
Did you use the Montessori reading scheme? I haven’t really looked at it, but I thought maybe I should - we know lots of letter sounds and blends but not a single sight word… perhaps the Montessori word-matching activities are what we need to recognise the shape of words as well as the sounds of letters.
Hello, reading bear looks really good but it doesn’t play well on my android tablet. The suggested skyfall(??) and puffin are not compatible so can’t download them… any other suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks
Do you all ask your kids to sound out the words? I never asked H. or E. to sound out the words. I do that for them. Then they put the words together. Soon enough they would skip the sounding out (by me) and read them. E. is 2 years 4 months and is able to read all the Starfall stories fairly fluently (occasionally we’ll have to sound out a word) and can read similar paper books. H. was almost exactly on the same level at this age.
If you haven’t tried it before, then try it this way: start your child reading flash cards or a book. If there is any hesitation, start sounding out the word yourself, slowly. Then, if the child doesn’t come up with the word, sound it out faster. If still no luck, then just tell them the word. Then move on to the next one.
I’ve read stories like this here before. I really suspect that some parents actually teach their children to sound out, and then their children think that that’s what they’re supposed to do, i.e., it’s part of their assignment. But (obviously) sounding out is just a crutch, and one they should be able to do mentally. So do it for them and get them past it as soon as possible.
Let me know if this works any better…or if you’ve already tried it without success. Hope this helps.
Jemi…sorry, I haven’t revisited the Android flash browser situation in a while. You just need to locate a browser app that enables you to see Flash, and Reading Bear should work (more or less) in it.
dad dude , i don’t ask him to sound out the words but he learned it from me , or from reading bear when we sound out a word he can easily say it , bu than he probably learned that i can read any word by sounding it out . not sure if i should just move one and show new words or keep repeating the same set of words till eventually can read them by sight . the thing he complains and says mama i read those
i know i shouldn’t worry and it will come but it is kinda of hard to wait .
viv
Hi
I am trying to access reading bear on my iPad with little success. Can anyone tell me how. Tried Rover and Puffin browsers. Both did not work :closedeyes:
I did remind her of that fact again!