Our Reading Lessons - The Ordinary Parent's Guide

K has been working out of a book entitled The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. This book has been wonderful for us. It teaches reading phonetically and starts with the sounds of the letters of the alphabet. Because K already knows the letter sounds and how to sound out short vowel words, we skipped to the section on consonant blends. We worked through that section doing one to two lessons a day.

The lessons usually begin with a short review and an introduction to the concept. For example, in the consonant blend section, you review the two letters that make up the consonant blend, and then introduce the blend. Then you and the child work through words with that particular consonant blend and a short story with words containing the blend. Most lessons contain multiple blends.

There are many aspects of this book/work that I like. First, I like the fact that this is self-paced. You don't need to feel like you have to go through an entire lesson at a time nor do you have to limit yourself to only one lesson if your child is ready to move on. Additionally, going through these lessons has helped me to see where K is having issues. For instance, sometimes he doesn't read the words/letters that are on the page. So now, I am more intentional with making sure he is reading what is there. We also go back and review any blends, etc. he is having difficulty with. Another benefit is that this work also requires concentration and focus from K. Some days we do more, and on others, we do less, but we usually work around 15-20 minutes at a time.

Here is a picture drom the day we worked on the addition of s to words and a discussion of singular and plural. On this particular day, I got multiples of items around the house show him the difference between the two.

the letter tiles and book

K really enjoys this book and asks almost everyday to do a "lesson" out of it. He is moving along well, and we adapt the instructions to fit our needs. It is a wonderful tool to use in addition to the other things we have.

The suggested materials are magnetic letter tiles (these can be ordered from a website the book mentions), 3x5 index cards, scissors, pens, pencils, drawing supplies, paperclips, yarn, magnets, and a couple of other items. Some of these items are for optional activies. The items we have used so far are the moveable alphabet (instead of the magnetic letter tiles) that I printed from here and a magnetic writing board. Sometimes, I use other miscellaneous items depending on the lesson.

Our magnetic board - I usually use this when K is having a hard time sounding out words to isolate sounds