Phonics and the Alphabet

With every success, comes a sense knowing more than you really know.  With every failure, is the opportunity to actually know more.

With that said, I know more today than I knew a year ago.  Reading is easy to teach, as long as you do not make it painful. I do believe with all my hope that Susan wise Bauer (www.welltrainedmind.com) is right, that a toddler learning to identify cat and milk, can just as easily identify A and B if taught to do so.  Just as they learn cats goes meow and cows goes moo, they can learn A goes aaaa.

The eye opening thoughts of this, make me eager to prepare the 4 year old and the 2 year old.  I regret not having this thought years earlier with the other two older kids.

I am now treating reading, not as a subject to learn through the years of schooling, but as a life skill.  Just like learning to feed animals, making beds, and learning to talk.  We will now approach reading as a daily skill building experience and no longer as school.

One thing I have fallen in love with is the direct guide of reading, skill by skill that is provided with Fantastic Phonics.



We just started using the program and it is a hit.  The stories are a hit with the kids.  Quick and easy to print. Each skill building printable book comes with a lesson guide with added activities to reinforce the skills.
I am using this to polish and finish my 2nd grader's phonic skills.  I am at the beginning to help my 1st grader reinforce his use of phonics versus whole word habit.  I also started my 4 year old on it, but anticipate a very slow progress over the next 4-8 months.  By the way, our Bob books fit in really well with this.

To aid in the knowledge of names and sounds of the letters, I printed out several flashcards that I am going to put on a ring to travel around with us.  I am hoping to fortify the 4 year old's comprehension and also be able to begin building my 2 year old's vocabulary.

There are so many wonderful free sites out there.  Here are a few of my favorite.



These are 2in by 2in cards at mr printables.  I also printed the lower case.




I couldn't help but adore these from mr Printables, also.

Then because we just love the letter factory by leapfrog, I had to make these!


Huge thanks to Jessica at one shoe to she!

We will not be kicking off our first day of school until after Labor Day.  By then, we will have of curriculum posted.
~trish