It Clicked!

In the beginning of the summer Ellis asked me a few times when he could learn how to read. After a few times of asking I thought maybe we should give it a try. I borrowed a book from the library, "The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Your Child to Read" and we went to it.

The first 26 lessons go letter by letter, learning the name of the letter and the sound that it makes. He already knew a lot of the letter sounds from a Leap Frog video that he loves. Lots of visitors came in and out of the house this summer so our lesson time wasn't always consistant but in the last 2 weeks we have worked at it for 10-15 minutes nearly every week day. Near the end of last week he was ready to start sounding out two and three letter words. He did the two letter words with ease but as soon as I added a letter he got really frustrated and wouldn't even try to sound it out.

I took a day break and then the next day we just did a fun review. I gave him a cookie sheet with flour in it and made a letter sound for him to write in his pan. He loved it and so I had him write words that I sounded out for him. Today I cut out letters from construction paper and we tried reading again. For some reason today was the day. It was so fun to watch his face when he knew that he had just read a word. He would read it and then start laughing with disbelief. As soon as he got it Alaire would say, "good job Ellis" as if she knew it all along. The funny thing was a few times as he was sounding them out she would hear the word before he did and she would say it herself.

**Don't look to closely but the little reader's mommy was reading upside down and placed the "a" in front of him upside down...... oops!