Update on LM's English Reading

First of all, my hello to Marta. Thanks for reading my blog!

Secondly, let me share my exciting news: I think LM is finally getting the hang of reading phonics! Hooray!

I have to say, I was a bit worried about this aspect earlier. She started her reading journey about a year ago or so with Your Baby Can Read, which was kindly donated to us and which was an absolute and immediate hit with her. As the title suggests, this DVD series is generally intended for younger users, so I did not follow the suggested schedule with then 3.5-year-old LM, but simply let her pick any volume she wanted to see.

I was pretty laid back about this venture and did not test her for the first month or two, as, to be quite honest, I did not expect to get quick results. I then made a few cards with some words from the show hoping that seeing them in this format might assist her learning. To my astonishment, she could read all of these words without any problem! I remember laughing at myself for having laminated those cards to prevent “wear and tear”. Silly me!

I also printed a few of Fry noun cards, which can be downloaded from this very helpful site. She grasped those quite quickly too. She also enjoyed Usborne First Hundrend Words in English.

It was at this stage that I started thinking about shifting my focus away from the whole-word approach and start introducing phonics. Learning letters and their sounds was easy and painless. I can’t even remember teaching these specifically as LM somehow “sponged” them in. I am attributing the success to LeapForg’s “Letter Factory” as well as Preschool Prep Company’s “Meet the Letters” DVDs.

Blending sounds together, however, proved to be a problem and we experienced a major stumble when I attempted to introduce the first CVC words from Larry Sanger’s Fleschcards. LM would sound out each letter perfectly well, but then would blend them into some completely different word. I persevered for a week at the end of which LM simply memorised the first set and could read the words, but still only as whole words.

Arguably, some kids “figure out” the phonics once they have seen a good number of whole words, but I was not quite convinced that it was the way for LM to go. Not exactly reaching my goal at that stage with Fleschcards, I decided to put them aside for the time being. In the meantime, I thought I could work to LM’s strengths and teach her some sight-words.

Well, how do you teach sight-words to a speech-delayed child who does not even use them correctly when talking? I saw little point in showing LM cards with words which had no meaning to her and which could not be easily illustrated. What helped was reading books with simple senteces where these words appeared alongside the words she could already read and which had meaning to her.

She was initially very reluctant to look at the sentences in the printed books and would completely lose interest if I started running my finger under the lines. So I prepared a few PPT books for her with herself as a main star. She was very curious to see the picture following the text so she eagerly read every word on the preceding slide. She also demanded to read them again and again, so there was the necessary element of repetition allowing some of the sight-words to “sink”.

We have now moved to Ladybird “Read It Yourself” series, and going through Level 1 books, which I do recommend. Each book of this level starts by introducing keywords, so when the child starts reading the story s/he can easily recognise these words. Many sentences are partially repeated, which helps to gradually build up reading confidence.

A couple of weeks ago we also ran the trial version of BrillKids Little Reader, and this looked a great programme which would probably work very well with LM. She loved the animated presentations and still keeps asking for more although our trial period is now over. Sadly, this software is not free and at this moment I cannot afford buying it, so I had to turn down the full-version upgrade offer.

This, however, brought me back to Fleschcards. I found out that a member of BrillKids forum has put these cards into the PPT format and kindly made these freely available. Big thanks to annisis!

I started with the first three lists and I can see that LM is now successfully blending sounds! She sounds out every letter, then blends the last two sounds and then blends both of them with the beginning sound. I know these are still very early "phonics days" but I think she is now at an entirely different level. I also think I now have a better understanding of why LM had difficulties blending sounds initially, but I think I should write up my thoughts in a separate post.

My plan for now is to continue with Fleschcards and to try out some other first reader books. LM has also started to enjoy starfall.com which is absolutely great. I don’t want to lose the momentum but I know with my daughter I need to tread very carefully to make sure reading becomes her favourite activity and not a chore. I you have any tips or recommendations, please feel free to share them in the comments. I will greatly appreciate your input!