Ready2Read

Before I start I want to say that I was not asked to write any of this. It is my own personal opinion, and something that has worked for us so great that I wanted to share it with you. :)

I have been wanting to write this post for quite some time to rave about the Ready2Read program that was created by Annie from The Moffatt Girls. I have only great things to say about this program. We have officially completed 4 Units. We did two units and then would have a review week. Annabelle is absolutely flourishing using this. I started looking for something that would be more hands on for her (and help me a little more since I've never taught anyone to read). The units are very easy to put together. I would recommend checking this out if you are looking for something to teach your little one to read. I am very pleased with our results so far.

The first week was a little difficult for Annabelle as it was completely new to her and she didn't quite understand how to sound things out to make a word. She got it during our second week and she has been catching on GREAT ever since then. She loves it when we're reading a book together and I pause at a word that she knows and she gets to read it. :) She has become so confident in sounding things out she's even started to do it with words that we haven't learned yet.

I wanted to show you some things that Annabelle has been doing throughout these last 6 weeks with her reading. I recommend going to The Moffatt Girls site as her posts for each of these units is much more detailed than what I'm showing you here. Everything seen in these pictures comes from the Ready2Read Units.

Reading her word family books. We've been learning 2 word families a week.
Tracing sight words. With this program we've been learning 5 new sight words a week.
This is her favorite activity. She loves this little crack the code at the end of the week.
Word picture match. She reads the word and then matches it to the correct picture.
The same thing, only she traced the words before matching.
Each unit there are sight word mats to decorate. We've used glitter, paint, and play dough. As you can see she enjoys this. lol
Working on her sight word caterpillar.....
She reads and reviews these words every day during our calendar time.
Word family sorts are included in every unit.
This is our word family garden (sans 2 purple flowers). These represent all the words that she can read so far. She's pretty proud of this little garden.
There are a few other aspects of the program that I don't have pictures of. There are color by sight word and word family pictures. Also, color by number sight word flashcards. There is a Read/Trace/Paste sheet for each day of the week. It is a sentence that is read by the student, then traced, then cut out and pasted. Annabelle really likes them.

Just wanted to briefly share something that is working for us. :) Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Reading Chapter Books

We have started Annabelle's K curriculum this week. In doing this we have begun to read chapter books. I am not concerned about most of them holding her interest. However, I was feeling a little iffy about Born Free by Joy Adamson.

It is a good book about a woman and her husband living in Africa and raising a lion cub. The language (not bad words, just the way things are worded) and words used are way over Annabelle's head. Coupled with little to no pictures I knew this book would be a hard one to get through. I didn't want to put it aside because of that.

After our first reading I knew that I would have to come up with something more to keep her listening. Pretty sure her eyes glazed over within the first two paragraphs. lol I thought for a while and this idea popped into my head (thank you Lord!).

We played a "Find the Lion" game while we read. I printed out a clip art picture of a lion and placed it behind one of the doors in this Melissa and Doug latch puzzle. I would read a page and then ask Annabelle a question about what I just read. If she got the answer right she was able to open one of the doors. As soon as she found the lion we would be done reading the book (even if we didn't get through all that was scheduled).
She really appreciated this. I think that she felt like she had some control over what was read. With the goal of finding the lion in mind she listened much better, although we still had some problems.... her brothers. lol I hope that she will soon adjust to listening, comprehending, and answering questions. If this book continues to be a problem we will shelve it for later. I want to foster her love of learning and reading. I want it to never feel like something she HAS to do, but something she WANTS to do.

How well did she do with this little game? Well, I asked 8 questions and she answered 5 correctly. I think that is pretty good for the first time around! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

I am linking this up to Preschool Corner. Head on over there to see other great ideas.