Reading through many blogs and talking to many seasoned homeschool moms, I realized that putting it down and picking it later would be a great idea. So about 3 months into Kindergarten we stopped reading lessons altogether! We still worked on letter sounds, writing, and letter recognition, but as far as blending sounds and phonics we didn't do anything.
Then in about February of last year, we picked up the lessons again. He was now 6 years old and still struggling greatly! Really all aspects of schooling was a struggle, he couldn't sit still and he couldn't focus. His school day ran from about 12:30 till 1:00 every day. We did active games and limited the seat work portion of his day. The highlight of his day was math! The kid loves numbers and he just gets it! Number make sense to him, letters not so much!
My oldest son was using the All About Spelling program and we LOVED it!!! I kept looking at the All About Reading program but really struggled with whether or not to buy it, its pretty pricy! I didn't want to waste our money on a program that wouldn't work for my son. Eventually I gave in and bought it, but not until about April of last year! We took a few weeks to complete the first few lessons and only got about 4 lessons in before we stopped school for the summer.
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| My little creative guy! This is his robot monster he created using our magnetic pattern blocks. |
When we picked it back up in the fall, I was really discouraged because he still was struggling! I felt like giving it up, but I knew he was to the point of readiness, it was more of an attitude issue. So we have plugged away and are now on lesson 33 (out of 49). Just this week it seems as though the light bulb has went on and he is just soaring with it!! Up until this point he was still struggling with blending sounds at the beginning of words, such as the fl, pl, and sm. Yesterday was we were reviewing some words from a while ago, he got through like 10 words in less than a minute!! I'm telling you, that NEVER has happened before! It usually takes about 5 minutes to get through the review because he struggles, he gets agitated and frustrated when he can't get it the first time.
The All About Reading program is a multi sensory program which is perfect for a little guy who prefers to use touch and sound, as opposed to just sight. There are cards and tiles he can manipulate, books to read through that he is constantly flipping the pages, and games to play.
If you have a struggling reader I strongly suggest this program!! It truly does work and I have seen the beauty of a struggling reader actually get it! His words to me today were "Mom, I can actually hear you saying the sounds!" It makes me think that up until now, he wasn't able to make that distinction. Hallelujah!!!
I also made up this little game board, not very fancy but it helped in reinforcing the words in a non schooly way. He loved it! Especially since we used Batman figures as our game pieces. The rules were pretty simple, he had to pick a card and read the word, if he got it right he was allowed to roll the dice and move that many spaces. I also let my 4th grader play but he had to spell his words from his current All About Spelling lesson, that didn't go so well! He was mad because his brother just had to read and he had to spell! They had fun anyway though!
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| Very simple board game that I created to reinforce his reading skills. |
Do you have a struggling reader? What have you done to encourage your child in reading?
** This is not a sponsored post! I do not have any affiliation with All About Learning Press, I just love their stuff and use it and want to share!**
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