Hi everyone, I just wanted to share our success with you all. Something clicked for Ian a few months ago. we were doing readingbear and daddudes flash cards and he was learning just fine when I decided to try monkisee. Suddenly he was learning new words really fast. I had always thought he wasn’t a whole words learner. But, He’s learned hundreds of words in just a few months now.
A few weeks ago I realized he could choose the correct word from a group of choices of entirely unfamiliar words. He was playing stack the countries on the iPad and I would tell him which country to choose and he would look at all the country names and find the right one. :biggrin:
Then he read the word pull which he knows, but it was written vertically on a door so he read it “llup” :laugh: He read the word brain from a video which I hadn’t taught him and then he read “brow” as in eyebrow but read it like you would read the ow like snow instead of cow. I think the mistakes are the most telling because
they show that they are not memorized words that he really is starting to process the rules. We had only been through the short vowels on readingbear so it seems it is true that kids can pick up phonics from whole words. I never really doubted it but I just didn’t think it would happen that way for us. It is very exciting. 8)
Anyway, just wanted to share!
Oh yes I agree the mistakes are the most telling! It’s incredible kids ever learn using phonics considering the mess our language is in.
Your excitement is valid. He will be reading well in no time. Kids go from this stage to reading books in half a year with daily practice. Keep exposing him. Wonderfully exciting! I love this stage of the reading journey. It’s the best when they KNOW they got a word right and are proud of themselves. Best part of my job!
Yeah!! That is so exciting. I think we breathe a sigh of relief when it takes a little while to get there. This is very similar to the experience I had with my youngest. I did some whole words with her, but I focused way more on phonics. When I finally went back to whole words, she just blossomed and took off. As Mandy said, within 6 months she was reading really well. It is so worth it, isn’t it? In this journey I have learned that a combination of the whole word method and phonics works very well together. They work together to make great readers. I am so happy we got to be a part of it indirectly through MonkiSee. Thanks for trying our stuff. :biggrin:
That is great!
Sounds very much like James. We started phonics, went whole words and dabbled lightly in phonics. But then he started reading words using phonics rules he hadn’t been taught. He figured out Ch in his own, as he did with ing, Ed, etc. he also made those phonics mistakes that were correct, but not correct with the exception word.
But I know he was still a whole word reader because he was able to read gnirps easier than I could.
thanks everyone, your posts are very encouraging. 
krista, monkisee has been huge for us. i love that it has characters in it rather than just words with video. ian loves Howie, Skip, Olivia and the rest of the kids . I think that made a real difference for him. Thank you for such a great product.
I am so glad to hear it. He must know all his letters, but we are releasing a new MonkiSee DVD on June 28th called ABC Roundup. We all really love this new video. It is great and full of early learning stuff. Maybe you want to review it for your blog that I just visited? Let me know and I will send you one when it comes in.
Congratulations on your success! How old is Ian?
Mjv8099, Ian is 2 and a half.
Krista, thanks so much. I know the video will be wonderful. I am sending you a pm. 
That is perfectly wonderful. :biggrin: