Reading, Doing It Wrong Again

With each child I attempt to teach reading the right way. First we learn the phonetic sounds of the alphabet, then we start putting those sounds together to form words. With each child I end up doing it the wrong way. And with each child I try to it the right way a little differently, so as to avoid the wrong way that I always end up doing.

I tried teaching the names of the alphabet and then the sounds. I tried going straight to the sounds with the intention of teaching their names later. I've made games and songs about each new letter, and spent a week with each letter. We've made collages out of pictures depicting the letter sounds. We've made the letters out of clay, out of foil. We've drawn huge ones with chalk on the driveway and then played games on top of them. I have drawers full of tiny toys that start with each letter, tiny little books for each letter within those drawers. We have had a blast with these letters, and yet, I always end up doing it wrong.

What appears to work for us is reading. Not memorizing the sounds, but learning the sounds through words. This is the wrong way, I surmise from what I've read. But works for us. I think we have a memory problem here.  We just can't seem to learn the sounds without some real meaning behind the learning. I also find that I need a "trick" to help them remember the sounds even within the words. Not for every letter, but for the first third of the letters we work with. I've always helped them draw mental pictures of the letters doing something that will help them remember the sound it makes. This time around I made some cards with the letters making the sounds. And it worked. And he's beginning to read. So I guess that's what matters, that and having fun while doing it.

With the sound cards we greatly emphasize the sound. The M, m is turned into a cow with the sound being MMMM. So now every time he sees an M, m he thinks of the cow and the sound it makes. A, a is opening its mouth big and saying AAAAAAAAA so that the back of throat can be examined, so when we make its sound we do the same. And with those cards beside us, we went straight into reading. This time I'm using some free downloads for our readers, here,  and it's moving along quickly.

Yes, we do seem to have memory problems. I've tried the right method with eight kids now, and end up doing it wrong. And it works but, here's the bad memory part, I keep trying to do it the right way first. And not just for a couple of weeks, but for months. I need a memory pill.