Ship Full o' Pirates

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed

Congratulations! You have been to to Ship Full O' Pirates over 100 times! Just thought you'd like to know.

The Princess turning 5 recently kinda took me by surprise. Having a Princess is so much different than having Pirates that I find I think about her age in a different way. So, these last few days, I was sort of surprised to realize she is REALLY READY TO READ, as in, I don’t think I could stop her if I tried. So, I thought I would share what we’re doing and how and why and all that.

We’ve been using flash cards to learn the names of the letters for about a year. Don’t become alarmed, I don’t mean daily, I mean when the mood happens to strike both of us at the same time, so maybe weekly. I have Lauri Alphabet Puzzles that The Princess has played with since she was about two years old. We enjoy singing the alphabet song while brushing and braiding. But the real lessons just started a few days ago.

I got out my trusty copy of Noah Webster’s Reading Handbook and we’re just using it to review the alphabet names and learn the sounds. I like to do the sounds all at once, the way most of us teach the letter names. I teach the most common consonant sounds and the short vowel sounds. So, we run through this a couple of times, then we put the book away, even if she asks for more. In a few more days we will progress to the next page. Then I get out the Bob Books that I paid $2 for at Goodwill a few years ago. These are super for beginners. “Mat. Mat sat. Sam. Sam sat. Mat sat. Sam sat. Mat sat on Sam. ” (we laugh and laugh) “Sam sat on Mat.” (we laugh some more) “Mat sat. Sam sat. The End.” Thus ends book one. She is loving this. We read the book through twice and put it away, no matter how much howling there is. I’m not sure if Bob Books are still being sold, but any super easy, beginning reader would work, or if you’re clever that way, you could write and illustrate your own. (come to think of it, that would be a good project for one of the big Pirates) Then we get out the Get Set for the Code workbook and work three pages and put it away, yes there are protests, I just smile and talk about tomorrow and give high fives and kisses and praise.

No related posts.