It’s not what you think. We do have all the “regular” summer fun around here– camping, swimming, Popsicles– but we are having a new kind of summer fun. We’re learning to read.
Yep, all three Littles are on the reading train. I thought The Captain would benefit from some summer phonics; he has struggled so much in the academic part of school this year. Having already tried everything that clicked with the Bigs, I talked to my friends about what helped their kids. I settled on Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. It is working like magic. All three kids can now sound out simple words and all are making rapid progress. I almost can’t believe it.
Tinker is leading the charge; she is now sounding out whole sentences of words, with The Blitz just a lesson or two behind her and the Captain a lesson or two behind him. They love the format of the book which includes a lot of rhyming, but mostly, they love reading.
The Captain’s speech teacher and special ed advocate happened into my teller line the other day. She was thrilled to hear of his progress and wondered why I thought it was clicking. I do believe the lack of pressure away from school helps; he is the kind of kid that shuts down when he “tries” to think about something. I also credit the format. It is pretty much straight phonics. The school does a lot of memory words, which is hard for him; he has a poor memory. I also think that being home where he doesn’t have to put so much energy into the “behaving” part of school allows him more energy for a project like this. I do not know how far we will get, but we will keep on and see what happens over the summer.
And now off to some traditional summer fun– a baseball game!