"To Ew, for reading your first 13 words"

In a previous blog, I shared my frustrations teaching Ew to read ("You can't make him read or write, but you can make him not want to"). Out of the window went Siegfried Engelmann's "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons".

I didn't give up. I am just doing it differently.

We continue going to the library. Ewan loves his reading (as in being read to). He demands for it. He whines for it. When I lost my voice for 2 days and told him I couldn't read. My 4 year old told me "Reading is very good. We must do more of it." and "Mum, you can whisper the story to me if you can't read." I continue to surround him with books, books and more books. I shared my woes with Aunt Gloria in Ohio. She homeschooled 4 kids. She is the guru of homeschooling. At Christmas, she sent us a whole box of books!

I sound out words "to myself". When I am reading a book to him, I deliberately pause and sound out words e.g. "C-A-T cat". I don't make any demands of him. Sometimes, he gets annoyed because the story is stalled but he just thinks that I need to do that for me to read well.

I make up silly song with words spelled out in the lyrics. I can't think of an example of a song I created at the moment. There is a song that they play at Toy-R-Us that is really catchy and it goes something like "B-A-N-A-N-A, banana" over and over again. My kids learn things that are rowdy, loud and silly, easily.

I build his confidence by asking him to read the words in the story which I know he has memorized. "Once upon a time, there were three ......" I pause. He says,"bears". I praise. I applaud him for reading the word. I tell Po-Po. I tell Daddy. Everyone congratulates him. Ew acts nonchalant but I know he is pleased because he is doing it more now. He doesn't protest as much.

I deliberately spell out a word, sound it out, say it out load. As we read on and the word appears again, I ask him to help me read it. He does. Sometimes, he doesn't. That's ok too. We read the "Fantastic Mr Fox" for a month. The word "fox" was everywhere. When we were at a Thai restaurant last weekend, the chief waiter's name tag said "FOX". I turn to Ew and said, "Ew, can you read the Uncle's name on his tag". He looked away. A little embarrassed. I felt triumphant. I knew he knew it. Learning was reinforced in that incident.

When I see a word that means a lot to him example a food he likes, I point it out. I say "Hey, you like cheese. I think you should know the word cheese, so we can buy more when we're out shopping."

I label a few things around the house. Richard Gentry suggested it in his book "Raising confident Readers: How to Teach your Child to Read and write, from Baby to age Seven". I have only done it once. The labels are falling off and looking tacky. My house is looking  tacky. I am not sure if it works. Seeing the word in a book, I ask Ew to check if the label for "door" is still there. "Are you sure?" I ask. He spells it out. By the way, I was quite demotivated reading it because my child does not even fit the phase 1 Richard advocates. But he does have a few good tips here and there.

Last week, I bravely counted the words that Ew can now read. 13 words - bear, bus, toy, car, cheese, door, fox, train, cat, pig, No, dog, "I can't remember the last one". I made a really big deal of it. I wrote out all the words on different coloured cards. I punched a hole in the corner of each card and tied it together with a pipe cleaner. I told everyone about the words. Everyone wanted to hear him read and he did.

Ew told me he should be rewarded with a book from my secret stash (The Box). I present him "Rumpelstiltskin".  In it I have scribbled, " To Ew, for reading your first 13 words"