So, my gut has been saying to not attempt to reign in my 4 year old learner once distraction has set. I’ve just been “following the child”. There is plenty to learn about!
With regards to reading though, I begun to feel a bit frustrated and could use some wise words from some parents here.
For background, we did NOT do any Doman or other early academic learning type activities with our 4 year old. We did lots of Montessori practical life and sensorial works, however. And started violin at 3.
I feel like if we aren’t consistent with reading, it’s harder for my child. But my 4 year old sometimes resists reading words, and then looses (or at least appears to lose skill).
For example:
At 3.5, wrote a word by putting together letter sounds (sort of happened by accident). At 3.5 could read some of the words in the introductory BOB books (sat, cat, Mat…). IF we continue them daily or a few times a week, can retain these words. If not, will be frustrated at them the next time we try.
So…wise parents here…do I back off? Try a different approach? We have tried several different methods. Our newest arrived in the mail yesterday and seems very promising (Rocket Phonics…I’m very hopeful for this one as it includes lots of fun games and jokes, etc.). But there is still the resisting of reading words (some that were read a year ago).
Has anyone had similar experiences? My child still loves to do lots of literacy type activities but if there is no practice with reading words, the mastery is only temporary.
Well first get eye’s tested, if can with LO it can be difficult, try differnet size fonts (the bigger the better) try different colors of fonts like black or red. Sometimes trying a computerized program like www.abcmouse.com or www.starfall.com is a better choice then using books. Your child may be just bored with words, word cards, etc. or could be something else going on. Some children do not like words so other methods of displaying words needs to be used like software, virtual flash cards, puzzles, letter tiles, sentence strips, etc. Sometimes children can be scared of a book for it may be too busy, sometimes trying a blank piece of paper with a hole cut out for just the sentence to show through is needed, like a blue or orange piece of contruction paper with a square cut out to expose the sentence. Allowing the child to create a work and then a sentence on their own instead of in a book.
The one thing I’ve learned with teaching 4yr olds to read you need to be rather crafty in doing it. I’ve had to use several methods in order to get my daughter up and running.
I will admit I didn’t know much of anything about early education. My knowledge was limited to , teach your child to read at about 4.5 , 5yrs , 6yrs of age because that’s when all of the experts say that children can learn to read. I had no idea you could really start as early as infancy otherwise I would have done so with my girls.
I didn’t know much until my 4th daughter one day saw a commercial for Your baby Can Read on t.v when she was 3. It was the first time I had ever heard of the product or even was introduced to babies reading. Even then I thought it was a product that was most likely a money waster as I knew of no one that ever used such product. Still in my mind children who learned to read early were little geniuses and that wasn’t my girls.
My daughter begged to want to learn to read and I ripped out my phonics program that I used with my other girls. Because in homeschool circles, phonics is the ONLY way to teach children to read. It was a terrible and miserable failure. Though my daughter knew her letters and her sounds she just could not for the life of her hear it put together. I began to feel like I was teaching my oldest. I ‘tortured’ , I mean taught her with phonics and it was a horrible experience. She didn’t finally start reading until the age of 7 when I began to add whole words and phonics together. Even then she didn’t start to read fluently until the age of 9.
So for Christmas of last year we saw YBCR on the Walmart shelf and my daughter begged for it and I bought it. I figured what did I have to lose? I lost nothing. I did gain a child that now loves to read and brings me books all of the time to read. I love that she is so confident now.
I did manage to keep her attendion with YBCR for all 5 DVDS. I useed them during her potty time so she was kind of stuck watching them. LOL.
We’ve moved on to the MOnkisee shapes DVD and are using Brillkids.
If you go to my blog ( www.thereedfamily-blog.blogspot.com ) you can read all about how I have gotten my daughter to learn to read. It may spawn some ideas for you too.