Pumpkin is still enjoying her school time. Whenever possible I teach all of the children at the same time at the kitchen table. However, I like to work with them independently as much as possible when working on skills needed for developing their reading.
Pumpkin matching magnetic letters to corresponding flash cards.One thing I’ve done differently with Pumpkin is that I’ve taught her letter sounds before letter names. With the boys I taught the alphabet song, then capital letters, then lower case letters, then the letter sounds. Pumpkin was taught the letter sounds first and she knows all 26 of them. She seems to be learning the letter names on her own without much formal instruction. She also learned lower case letters first and so we are now focusing on capital letters.
The reasons behind this theory is that:
a.) Letter sounds are what is needed for reading, not the names of the letters.
b.) When children begin to read they encounter more lower case letters.
Thank you for stopping by! I LOVE getting to “meet” other homeschool families. You’re children are so adorable. I think it’s great to focus on the lower case sounds- that is what will be most useful.
I’m thinking that teaching lowercase first makes so much sense – too bad it only took me to the 4th kiddo to figure it out! 🙂
My daughter has no interest in the letter names only the sounds…sometimes I get frustrated thanks for the extra reminder reading involves sounds 🙂