Is It Naptime Yet

Language Experience is the method I’m using to teach Lilah to read and write. ( We’re just in the reading phase right now.)
My friend Beth was once a teacher, now she’s very against public schooling. Her two daughters have been homeschooled for about  five years. The oldest being 15 the youngest being 10 or 11. I love her daughters and they are wonderful people.

Anyhow- here is the process, thus far, for  teaching Lilah to read.

– We write a story together each week. (She tells us what to write down.)
– We read that story throughout the week and the other ones when she wants.
– After at least a week of reading it we put the story on strips of paper. They’re first by sentence. The child   puts the sentences in order. (We do this with some stories but not all of them since we write a new one each week.)
– After feeling comfortable you then cut the sentences into individual words, or what I did the first time was into two to three words per piece. They put those in order.
– Then cut into individual words to be put in order.
– After they’re in individual words they can also serve as flash cards. Some words will be above the child’s ability to read so when she is stumped I say. “This words is …. What is this word?” and we move on.

These are pictures of Lilah with the second story we’ve put into words strips. I had it in the sentences and right away she asked for them to be cut up in individual words.
This was the first time she put it together.

She put it in order correctly the first time.

She seems to enjoy reading her stories but is sometimes reluctant to put the words in order. I’m going to bring her binder with us so we can have it on hand for practicing during this trip.

I don’t know if it’s because we’ve started doing this, or just because we’re focused on reading more but I see her reading things out loud more often. “Back to Menu” “Tom Thumb is small” “The girl jumped” are phrases she’s read around the house from shows, books, and the computer.

We also read a verse in the Book of Mormon each night. I have her read the words she knows and I read and she repeats the other words. She’s also learned a lot by us doing that together each night.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.