Learning To Read

Have I mentioned lately that my kids adore the Learning With Leapfrog DVDs wherein they learn the alphabet and how to read? We’ve had these DVDs for a couple months and the kids LOVE THEM.

It has become a daily routine to sing the entire alphabet at some point during the day. On the way to daycare, eating dinner, getting ready for bed, having a bath – you name it, if there’s an opportunity, you’ll hear us all singing “The A says Ah the A says Ah, every letter makes a sound, the A says Ah. The B says Buh the B,” ….etc. Yes, we do all 26 letters.

The next DVD in the set is called Word Caper, and involve spelling simple words like cat, pet, big, not, etc. For a long time I let the kids just watch the DVD without quizzing them on my own, but now in the car I ask them to say the letters and then sound out the word we’re making. The other night we were in the car coming home from getting CootieBoy at daycare, and I had them sound out C-A-T. CootieGirl was not into it since she was sick, so I was trying to get CootieBoy to do it. He kept saying HAT instead of CAT. Finally, exasperated, CootieGirl angrily hissed, “C-A-T spells CAT, CootieBoy. NOT HAT.”

So it’s obviously working. While CootieBoy still loves the first DVD in the set, which is just the letters, CootieGirl is enjoying the Word Caper DVD much more because she knows her letters and wants to make words. DVD #3 is a continuation of the Word Caper DVD and I predict in the next week or so she’ll be done making small words and will want bigger ones. We’ll see. As it is, she is easily identifying letters in books and wants to begin deciphering small words.

DR. SEUSS HERE WE COME!