One of the great joys in my life right now is reading with my 5 year old son, Tyler. He is in a preschool class right now, but that’s not where he began learning how to read. He has been learning how to read because I have been teaching him!
With only one child at home right now during those long school hours, he wants my attention ALL of the time. It is actually harder to get anything done then when I had more children at home. (Weird, huh!?) At any rate, I remember praying to know how I could get anything done. The answer I felt– teach him how to read.
It was hard to follow that prompting– give MORE of my time away when I WANTED more? Still, I followed the prompting. I rested on the fact that if I could teach him to read, then maybe he would be one of those kids that would hide himself in a corner of the house, and read for hours on end. I would have time again.
Tyler doesn’t have a long attention span yet, so the time I’ve had when he can actually focus is very short. Still, it has been incredible to watch his progress. After we learned most of the letters, I started by making little letter cards . We used these to start sounding out simple words. His favorite words were “Tyler” and “Mom”. We were able to create little mini sentences with these words which he could read. From there, we began reading a great book series, called the “For All Learners Program”, which introduced words slowly with characters that Tyler has learned to love. He gets so excited when he sees one of the characters that he knew from a previous book.
Today he finishes level one. I don’t think he is as thrilled as I am! For fun yesterday, I let him type messages to me on a new program that I’m working on. It allows our family to send messages to each other. He thought it was a game. Amongst the gibberish, every once in a while he would type a word that he knew- “tyler” and “mom”. How fun it is to see him making his own words! I am thrilled that it is making him so happy.
As in so many other things, I am learning that when I take the time with my children, instead of using it for myself. I am blessed abundantly. I also have the great thrill of being able to say, with him, that he is learning how to read, from his mother. =)