We showed our boy Leap Frog’s Letter Factory a few times (checked it out of the library).
Within a week or two of that brief introduction, we got our order of foam bath letters and numbers.
I threw the numbers in the tub and was about to stash away the letters (thought he wasn’t ready and besides, they were all upper case, and we’ve been focusing on only lower case words in LR).
Well, he globbed onto the letters quick before I could put them away.
He is thrilled and delighted with his new ‘manipulatives’.
He arranges them, moves them around, runs around with them, chews them and sounds a lot of the letters out (I think he’s over half the sounds down well.)
So, my question is, what do I do now?
I was so focused on the whole word approach with LR, but now he’s sounding out letters…
Where do I go from here?
How do I take the next step?
What is the next step?
I think you can combine both phonics and whole word reading. Carry on with Little Reader but work on phonics too - you still have to learn some sight words with the phonics approach. The phonics drilling may benefit him later when it comes to developing writing and spelling skills.
I would focus on learning the letters - I think starfall.com is excellent for this. Once he knows the letters perhaps you could continue with starfall and/or use DadDudes wonderful fleschcards. I have used these and think they have really helped my son.
I have a similar problem, my son instead of reading whole words now, picks out all the letters in the words instead. He loves to sing the alphabet and say look letters! but he wont read the word.
i am also trying to figure out what to do next. Is there a good phonics approach that works for anyone? I am glad you mentioned starfall its been a while since we’ve been there, we’ll have to do that one soon.
I did letters and phonetic sounds with my daughter before we did a whole word approach, I didn’t know much about whole word approach until recently. She reads the words as a whole, but will also point out letters and say the sounds. I don’t know if these will work for you, but my daughter didn’t like the doman method of flashing the cards. She likes YBCR but she knows most of her words from the other activities we do.
I taped words onto the wall with a picture of the word next to it. That way she reads it when she is interested. Then after about a week I take the picture down. I say a week but it depends on how fast she gets the words and how many we have up at the time. Then we read the words without pictures for a week and then I retire those words. Another thing we do is make videos of her words. I take the video camera and she points out the words as I record. Then she watches it on the computer. She LOVES watching herself in the video. She is starting to know more words now so I also put up sentences to show her how to read from left to right. Another activity we did was draw a person and label her body parts.
She also helps me show words to her younger sister, so she reads them then too. Im not sure if this is what your looking for but it is working for us. GL
What I learn reading one of Doman’s book, the kids just know what letter is when they already understand what are the words. (when they are reading sentences). So, My baby is 28 months and I never teach her letters (we do the letters song but I don’t teach her).We do the words and we do the phonics to. I think she culd do better if I dedicade more time for her, but is hard when we are teaching 2 of diferent ages at the same time (my boy is 9 months). may that helps for you too.
GL, yes, I think putting words up on the wall is a great idea.
We have the word bed taped to the boy’s crib, and it’s only for lack of time that I haven’t added labels to other objects in his room (bookcase, window, dresser, door, hamper, table, coats, lamp, etc.) I’m convinced these will be the first words he’ll be able to read.
I’m not convinced he’ll look at DadDude’s Fleschcards with the same enthusiasm he’s got for his letter now, but I don’t want to miss the opportunity to build on his excitement for the sounds…
We have looked at Starfall’s letter clips, they are great.
Lol, I meant GL as good luck. But anyway. I also labeled a lot of things around the house. And I don’t even point them out all the time. She just reads them when she is interested. I think that is the goal. Having a lot of different sources of reading available so he can choose when to read the words himself. And when he points out the letters let him where that sound is in the word. When he points out the b in bed, tell him that says “buh” like in bed.
Also when you read a book with the word bed in it, point it out. I can’t really think of anything else. But basically just keep a lot of sources going. Words on the wall, things in the house labeled, words pointed out in books, LR, and whatever other games you like. Oh… We play the “label me” game. I wrote body parts on cards. Then I lie on he floor and have her label my body parts. I used to have to read her the word, but now she can read most of them on her own.
Also, if you come up with any good ones let me know. I am always looking for a new approach.