Language, letters and beginning reading

L is most definitely in a sensitive period for language and letters. Since she pretty much had all her lower case letter sounds down I introduced the upper case. We found this foam puzzle at the dollar store and the upper case letters were actually mine when I was a kid(way to go mom!)

We started off playing a game where I find the upper case and she finds the lower case. She can do them by herself now and can't get enough. She brings it out all the time and it's starting to drive me bonkers!


We've been playing stage four of the eye spy game so I finally made up some last letter sound sorts. All of the pictures start with the same letter to make it less complicated.

We also tried writing some letters in salt which was a big hit. First we tried easy ones like "o", "i" and "u" which were a great success. L was so excited and wanted to try them all which was of course disastrous! We just haven't worked enough on tracing the sandpaper letters yet for her to have any clue where to start writing them. It was fun but we'll do a lot more tracing work before trying to write more letters.

I was reading through some old posts from The Adventures of Bear(fantastic blog) and saw her poor mans version of the spinny speller. L came over and looked at the screen. She said c-a-f. So I pointed to the last letter and asked her what it was and she said t. Then she said cat. WHAT!? Okay so as soon she'd gone to bed I made my own version.

Today we tried it starting with "at" I said "a" and "t" each separately and then blended them. Then she said "at". We tried the first word cat and she got it. Then tried the rest. She got them so I added the pictures which she matched.

We moved on to her sounding out the words on these cards and matching them to the pictures. No problem! She wanted to do more but I didn't have anything else prepared. She is just exploding in her understanding in this area and I can't seem to keep up. I suppose tonight I'll have to make another "spinny speller" and find some more pictures.

I know with the Montessori Method the children learn to write the words first which I want to try but I don't have a movable alphabet. Soon I'll introduce step five of the eye spy game and while I'm doing that try and figure out how to make up my own version of the movable alphabet.

I'm starting to get out of my depth here and can't wait until she starts Montessori school in September!

Phonics Box

L has always been really interested in books and knows all of her books by title. We get three new library books every couple weeks she quickly learns their titles as well. I thought I would see how she responded to learning the phonics sounds. About three months ago I started making the sandpaper letters ( I know I have no life!). With each letter sound I also made three picture cards to go with it.
I introduced these to L at around 17 months and she loved them. Once we got going she picked them up quite easily. I keep them all in a small box we call the "phonics box". I don't keep them out but often ask her if she'd like to do them or she will ask for them.
I've sort of combined the Montessori Method with Jolly Phonics where the sounds are introduced in seven different groups. At the moment we are on the third group.

Once she'd learned the first group I introduced the magnetic letters as well. She loves to say them and match them to the sandpaper letters. As these are home made out of paper we didn't start tracing them right away because she constantly had her hands in her mouth. We've only recently started tracing them so we have a bit of catching up to do there.

After she'd learned the first two groups I introduced some words. I put the card over the word and she sounds out each letter. This takes a lot of concentration for L and we only do it in very short stints. We also match the magnetic letters with the word and picture. We've only just started doing this one and I'm taking it very slowly at L's pace. We also play the eye spy game which she is just cottoning on to!

I'm not sure when she'll start reading but I'm sure after a while everything will just click. She often points out the phonics she sees in books, and when we're out and about. I wish I could get some small figures for her to spell instead of just pictures but I can't seem to find any.

I would love to hear what anyone else has done with their children when introducing reading!