please throw me any ideas you have....

[hippiemum21580]

nak in regards to how to go about introducing and teaching letters, phonics, etc... this year i will be schooling both my 4 yr old and 6 yr old in kindergarten. my oldest is a year "behind" as we took a year mostly off after his dad left to just find our footing and live life. i figured i might as well toss my 4 yr old in with a relaxed approach since he hovers when we school anyway. my problem is english in terms of reading and writing has always been second nature to me and i have always been advanced in it. i really havent a clue how to teach it since i do not know how i learn it, i just GET it, kwim? i would really appreciate any ideas to help us get this ball rolling. should i teach words or individual letters> schools here do sight words but that seems illogical to me, wouldnt learning each letter individualy be better? should i teach capitals first or both? souns of letters or names? what should they know by years end? please note i have zero incometp put into school so curriculum books and such are not an option. i need fun, cheap ideas. tia!

[Village Mama]

Personally in hindsight i would have taught the boys the lowercase letters first... maybe just using the letter sounds. My almost 4 yr old is just starting his as well.Iprinted off some letter templates and cut out letters in felt. You could use old sweaters that accidentaly got washed and shrunk too. I blogged about mine yersterday... i have to fly because the kiddos are waking up!

[LilyGrace]

With my oldest we went from phonics to letter names to sight words for beginning reading, and lowercase before uppercase. I look at it this way - the kid is going to get more immediate use out of lowercase, phonetic instruction because that's what most of our words are made up of.

Here's some sites you may want to look at to help you:

www.starfall.com
www.internet4classrooms.com/month2month.htm
www.janbrett.com
www.letteroftheweek.com

By year's end they should know as much as they are ready for.

[hippiemum21580]

Thanks for the links! Starfall was the only one I had and my sons love that one! I was leaning towards it making more sense to begin with lowercase first. I liek the idea of teaching the sound the letter makes instead of so much focus on the letter name itself. Thaks for the old sweater tip. I have a ton of scrap fabric and thats the kind of stuff I was looking for, my boys are very much into tactile learning.
I do alot of babysitting for public schooled kids heer and liek I said they focus on sight words in kindergarten. I had a girl I used to take care of a few montsh back and I would do her homework with her. She had to "read " a book every night and basically she just memorized what the words looked like but if I asked her to sound it out or what sound a specific individual letter made, she could not answer me. It seemed highly illogical to me.

[ABand3]

If you're not opposed to using tv, we've found the pbs show 'between the lions' to be fun and helpful with learning letter sounds. We record the shows, get the books they use from the library and do some of the activities on the website (you can get to it from www.pbskids.org I think).

We also love starfall. In addition to the online activities, the do have printouts you can use.

[chaos_pie]

I would play with letters and focus on the sounds. Asking each other the sound of the letter, then starting to make words. You can use fridge magnets, cards with letters, scrabble tiles, whatever.... We would also talk about different words throughout the day---" house, I hear a "h-uh" sound in that word".

We have had fun "swapping" letters in our short words. For example, b-a-t, then p-a-t, then h-a-t (and even made up words are fine). We would take turns swapping letters and figuring out the word.

[Jenmom]

I recommend these all the time for the younger set:

Montessori Play and Learn by Lesley Britton

I Can Do It! I Can Do It! by LA Britta Gilbert

and Montessori at Home by Heidi Anne Spietz this last one would be particularly good for you because it does talk about teaching reading.

The Bob Books are good, basic readers and a lot of libraries carry them. They would be good for your older boy. If you want a more formal program for him then you might look into the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading or Phonics Pathways.

Also, order some catalogs-Lakeshore Learning, Montessori n Such, etc. Even if you don't buy things from the catalogs, you will get lots of ideas on games and such that you can put together yourself. They tend to have lots of language development ideas.

[skaterbabs]

My daughter ADORES starfall.com and the Leapfrog "Letter Factory" DVD. In the space of a week she was identifying her letters in miscellaneous contexts.

[tallanvor]

I used Sing, SPell, Read, and Write with my daughter and it was awesome. She loved it. It taught how to write the letters and also the phonics in a very logical procession. We also really liked it because it had songs to help her remember the rules and it had games. Fun games that she still likes to play even though she's now reading on a 4th grade level at 7. I used part of it to teach my then almost 4 yr old his phonics and he loved it, too.

Again, if you are okay with tv, my daughter learned half her alphabet by watching Wheel of Fortune with me. lol Not planned, just I was pregnant and tired, and we'd sit and watch it. After a week she knew 10 letters more than when we started.

Crystal

[hippiemum21580]

Thank you all so much! You have given me some great ideas. We almost never have the tv on but we DO get pbs so I will have to plug it in and let them check out between the lions. I alwasy forget teh tv can be a resource as we never use it! LOL
It is very reassuring to hear how so many of your children seem to have naturally picked up on letters and sounds by just being around them, not having to do such formal studies.

[2 in August]

We started with alphabet puzzles. Just a simple wooden one. We'd dump the letters off and as she picked them up I'd tell her what they were. After a while she'd say the letter name. Then I started telling her words to go with each letter (like m is for momma, j is for uncle John, etc. Soon she knew the letters and words that had them. She hated when I tried to teach her the sounds so we got the Leap Frog Letter factory dvd and she learned the sounds within a week. We've since got the other Leap Frog reading videos. Then she discovered Between the Lions and she's just starting to get into Reading Rainbow. She has pretty much taught herself how to read and sound words out.

[Lillian J]

I haven't seen these books, but they sure sound wonderful - yum!

The Wise Enchanter: A Journey Through the Alphabet

L M N O P and All the Letters A to Z

Waldorf Alphabet Book

- Lillian

[tallanvor]

Another thought. pbskids.org has cool games, and I think nickjr.com has a Blue's Clues alphabet game. JumpStart preschool was also one enjoyed by my kids.

Crystal

[phathui5]

When my ds did "kindergarten" we made an alphabet journal and every week he did a page for the next letter and cut out pictures of things that started with that letter to make a collage.