Gentle Introduction to Phonics for 4 yo?

[clovermom]

I have twins, boy/girl, who will turn 4 this summer. We are planning on homeschooling and I would like to start some simple preschool things with them in the fall. My main objective is to create a routine for our days and have them get used to having "school time". I'm looking for a gentle way to introduce phonics, beginning with letter recognition and consonant sounds. The curriculums I've browsed seem to assume this knowledge so I'm wondering if there are any curriculums out there that actually cover these basics. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to teach this on my own but I feel like a little extra direction would help me since it will be our first homeschooling experience. Any thoughts on what you've used, are using, would be much appreciated. We are leaning towards using a Charlotte Mason / Classical Education approach if that makes a difference. TIA, Janelle

[yllek]

I don't know if this will be helpful to you, but I'll share my experience. My son started to recognize letters and know their sounds when he was 18 mo. He knew them all by the time he was 2, and he learned their names shortly thereafter. He was recognizing and reading sight words by the time he was 3, then decoding and blending when he was 4. He is 5 now and a strong reader. Not super phenomenal, but certainly above grade level. He is reading Henry and Mudge books, if that gives you a sense of his current reading ability.

We did Starfall and viewed The Letter Factory a few times. We read lots of alphabet books. We had lots of magnetic letters, alphabet blocks, stickers, stamps, etc. lying around. I pointed out interesting signs and letters. We did some very simple and silly phonemic awareness activities, mostly in the car. That really cemented letter recognition, basic letter sounds and letter names. It was nice not to do anything "schooly" at this very young age. I'm doing this same approach with my 2 yo dd, and she also knows all the letters, their names and basic sounds.

Anyway, this approach was very easy and very gentle, because my little kiddos did not at all ever believe that they were supposed to "learn" something. It was just all around them, and they soaked it up.

I am currently teaching my 5yo phonics in a more systematic way, but since he is already reading pretty well, I do it mostly to help him understand the structure of words. Our approach is still silly and playful, with lots of games and manipulatives and patterning.

For your 3yos, maybe you want something like a "Letter of the Week" type of activity. If you Google, you will get oodles and oodles of activities to do. Stuff like that would never have appealed to my kids, but perhaps this is the type of phonics introduction that you are looking for?

[Kailey's mom]

check out starfall.com My dd loves it

[philia]

readingeggs.com

readingeggs.com and starfall.com. Starfall is free. readingeggs is entertaining. I like them both. I think home schooling must have been a lot harder before computers.

[chfriend]

I like www.progressivephonics.com

[cappuccinosmom]

starfall.com, alphabet puzzles, and mommy and/or videos repeating over and over again the phonetic sounds of each letter.

[zjande]

We love doing crafts over here. Like, I cut out a large "M" from posterboard & have my kids glue macaroni on it. We've glued straw on an S, beans on a B, egg shells on an E.... I love introducing letters this way.

There are also several craft books at the library that are filled with crafts used to introduce phonics.

[clovermom]

Thank you! I did a little bit more poking around and it looks like Explode the Code and a couple others have an "entry-level" program for learning the letter names and sounds. For now, the twins don't use the computer so, although they look fun, starfall and readingeggs aren't exactly what I'm looking for. I think I'll order the Ordinary Parent's Guide and think about getting the first ETC workbooks. I will also supplement those with lots of the artsy-crafty letter projects Thanks again!