Starting Something New

Tavin has been begging to read.  He gets to the point of tears that I can't really pick out books that he can read at the library the way I do for Koen.  I've tried to explain to him that he will learn and that right now there aren't books he can read for himself (he memorizes books and pretends to "read' them).  So, I asked him if he wanted to learn how to read.  Of course he said, "yes."  I decided I should look into how to help Tavin read.  I asked a friend that had taught her preschoolers to read and she highly recommended...

I did my research reading the introduction for the teacher this weekend and Tavin and I had our first lesson today.  I explained to him that we were going to spend special time together almost every day, just a few minutes learning to read.  Then I read him what the books says in red (because I read the directions and that's what I'm supposed to do).

Here's a glance of the first lesson.

He's totally excited about it and loved the first lesson.  At the end of the first lesson he got to write some of the letter sounds.  This program is not focused on writing or penmanship, except to help them learn the letter sounds.  I think whenever you write something, you remember it better and kids love hands on learning so I think it's a great aspect to include.  Here's Tav's very hard work on our first sounds, m & s.

I never intended to teach Tav to read.  It's always been my intent to just let them learn at their own pace.  With Koen he wasn't really interested in reading for himself early on, but Tav with an older brother who is independently reading is dying to do this for himself.  So I figured I could give it a try.  I do it with loose expectations.  We'll give it the 100 day try and see what happens.  I hope for Tav it works.  He will just be so thrilled and I'm sure it will only boost his self-confidence to succeed with this.  I'll keep you posted maybe every 25 days or so.  I'm committing it to prayer and hoping to just enjoy the journey with Tav.