I don't know why, but, for some reason when I began homeschooling 6+ years ago the idea of teaching my child to read made me sweat! The other things didn't bother me, but, for some reason if my child was able to read {and read well and enjoy reading} seemed to qualify me as a teacher.
Six plus years and three boys later and I have a whole different view on reading.
I really don't know why I was so worried about it, especially seeing that my oldest son really taught himself to read. We reviewed phonics quite a bit since he was two because he thought it was
fun, not that we were actually thinking of it as something
that needed to be taught.
Then enter child number 2, which of course is totally different from first child and the worry really began. This child has always
bounced walked to his own drummer since
before we met. This is the child that has taught me SO much and some days can be a real challenge, but, I have learned through patience and prayer SO much can be accomplished.
With both boys we used the
Bob Books. They both loved them and thought they were fun and fun is important when a child is learning or mastering a new skill. Drilling and repetition get old fast!
I never did anything formal in the way of reading the books. Like I mentioned Handsome really hopped into reading quite quickly and breezed through these. KitKat took his time and we read them over and over again while he learned and enjoyed. Handsome then moved on to some primers after this, while KitKat stayed with a phonics program to keep working on his skills.
Now on to Lovey Dovey. He is quite excited about reading the Bob Books. He is very good at sounding words out and almost where Handsome was in K, but, still needs a little practice so this is fun for us both.
About 18 months ago I happened to come across a FABULOUS site for
Teaching Reading with Bob Books. Although Lovey Dovey was not quite ready at that time to begin, I did bookmark the page and place it on my blog to jog my memory. Homeschoolin' mommas have so many things running through their minds most days and I know I need visual cues not to forget something this good! Brandy also has another
fabulous blog which I love to read as well and have gathered so much information there too! These two blogs are definitely worth checking out sweet friends!
Although we have ventured into the Bob books a bit we are backtracking back to Set one, book one and using Brandy's lessons.
I wrote out the letters that we introduced today, along with their sounds and a word that begins with that letter {LD provided the words}. He looked at the letters while reading the book. He actually on his own spelled out each word before reading them too which I thought was pretty cool.
The books are really sweet, simple and funny too! My eight year old saw us working on them and joined in on the fun!
