First Book!!

For awhile now Tyson has been really good at letter sounds. And I have been wondering how to teach him to read. He can easily sound out short words and he knows to read left to right, top to bottom, but I wasn't sure how to make the jump to actually reading sentences. There is a great book The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading that I have been trying to go through with him, but he was somewhat bored with it as he already knew the letter sounds..so we were thinking he needed a challenge.

The problem is that all of the books we have, especially the easy reader ones, he basically has memorized, so that wouldn't help him learn reading.

We found BOB books at B&N and decided to give them a try. I wasn't sure how he'd like them since he'd become disinterested in the reading guide, as though it were too easy.  As we pulled the first book out, I told him he would have to read it, that he actually COULD read it, and that we were not going to read ANY of the books to him.

He is the only one allowed to read the words in them.

So, with the first book in hand he excitedly started to read the first words...

We were so surprised! He was doing it!!!!!! It was kinda slow, but not too bad. And the first time through I didn't ask him to repeat the word faster to actually hear what it was, but I just let him sound them all out. He finished the book ALL BY HIMSELF!!! Sometimes he would repeat a word until he heard it, but I didn't ask him to do it. The second time through it he repeated the words and "listened" to them. Then he read the second and third book.

We went back to the first book, the third time through it, and he had definitely picked up speed. He read it to Jason and I tried to get it on video.. this video isn't very good, but it IS 'in the moment'..

After we taped this he wanted to call and share his exciting news with his Grandma's. They listened to him read the entire (it's short) book over the phone. (Thanks moms!) He was very proud that he could read the whole thing all by himself. We are too! :O)

Tyson, we are really proud of you and thrilled to see how well you work toward learning new things! It will be fun to see what you learn and discover as you read more and more! :O)

I blame Word World

Word World is probably one of Tyson and Kaiya's favorite TV shows. They watch it together and dance, shriek and laugh. Tyson likes the catchy little songs about letter sounds, and honestly, I like singing them to him. Both kids love to read, and we read a lot. I guess I don't know how much other families read, but, every time our kids bring us a book, we read it to them. The other night I read Tyson two books, which took about 20 min and in that time Kaiya brought Jason almost every book from her room to read, one by one, and he kept reading each one she brought out as long as Tyson and I were reading. It was pretty fun...did I mention we love to read? :O)

Tyson wants to learn how to read. He WANTS to learn how to read. I don't know how to teach him how to read. He's 3 years old. I don't need him to learn how to read. I like to read to him. But he wants to..so he's learning how to read.

It's probably because of Word World.

This afternoon I was, um, reading with Kaiya, and Tyson came in with a letter d and a letter b. (He has a magnetic set of letters and numbers they play with on the fridge). He wanted to clarify which one was which. So we sang the song from Word World, ' a line then circle is the letter b, a circle then line is the letter d'. He smiled and walked back into the kitchen. A few minutes later he called for me to come see what he did. I walked into the kitchen to look at the fridge.

"Look! Buh-ed. It says bed!"

"What?!?! What are you doing?! You spelled that? Are you trying to spell and learn how to read?!"

Which, being a defiant 3 year old, makes him want to spell all the more...

I'm so proud of him. :O)

Besides, I haven't even read the book yet about how to teach him how to read...

Reading

Just a quick note...
1. He is reading just the numbers. He doesn't have them memorized.
2. "Blast-off" is our own insertion. He's not reading it because it's not actually in the book.

Enjoy!