Earlier this year, I mentioned that we started our serious homeschooling journey where I introduced writing, reading, and counting to Aya. We were having fun until we had too much fun. Since she's only three years old, her primary focus is to have fun. I did not want to take that away from her so I tried to incorporate our study time in our playtime.
The magic words
She was learning just fine, she can count up to 20, she knows basic addition, I'm slowly introducing subtraction, telling time, days of the week, weather, etc. But I can't get her to read. I can see she loves our storytime. She would take a book from her bookshelf every day and ask me to read her a book. To which I always oblige. Then I told her she would have so much fun when she knows how to read.
"Nanay, teach me to read.""
I did not expect she'd say that. Of course, I did not want to spoil her reading mood so I started writing words on our plastic-covered wall. Please excuse her doodles, she does that every single time we finish our lessons.
Don't skip
I felt guilty that I wanted for her to be able to read right away, I gave her reading exercises without even going through the letter blending lessons. I feel this was the reason why she felt overwhelmed with reading for the past 2 months. Whenever I take out her reading exercise book, she would say no profusely. I know better than to force her. That's why I gave her more than 2 months of break.
But in reality, the break was for me. I did not know what to do back then. I was seeing reading programs (costly reading programs) online and I am almost at the brink of giving in to the guilt and conscience attack. Then I had a chat with a friend who used to be an online English Instructor.
She told me a technique that would help children at my kid's age read better. Word Grouping. If your kid still needs to be familiarized with the letters and phonics, the groupings should be the start of the letter.
Cat, car, cab, clown, cotton
But if your kid is already familiar with the letters and the phonics, the grouping should be by the letters you are blending.
-at
cat, bat, hat, mat, sat, pat, rat
And it did work! Well, we just started with the -at group.
And to make it even more interesting, my friend suggested I use flashcards. I have used flashcards before but I wrote action words. Mainly because it's easier for my kid to remember the words written in there because they're action words. But for other words, this is the technique.
DIY Flashcards
I made it a bit more appealing and added some color to it. As always, I used her milk cartons. But this time, I asked my husband to buy me some bond papers, glue, highlighter, and a puncher. I have extra yarns so instead of using a ring binder, I just used my leftover yarns to tie the flashcards together.
I'll be doing the same thing for all the other groups. It's easier to bring it anywhere we go (the rooftop is the farthest we can go for now, but still).
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is a full time stay at home mom juggling homeschooling, crocheting, and homemaking. A Business Administration graduate with a major in Marketing who ended up in the contact center industry, on the frontlines, climbing her way up to Workforce Management where she found her passion in real-time analysis and management. A once self-proclaimed careerwoman who soon realized homemaking was her real calling. Her passion varies from reading, writing, photography, and most of all, crocheting.
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