Dorothy is having trouble reading. Well, she’s not. But she doesn’t like it. And she should, there’s no reason not to.
I’ve watched 6 other children learn to read as a homeschool mother. Faith and Abby picked it up from being read to and playing on Starfall. Bede is hyperlexic and could read before he could talk. Gilbert also went the Starfall route. Trixie was the first child I taught, with Bob books and mother-led Starfall. Gloria I also taught, but she was very reluctant. I don’t really remember what we did, but it was a lot and it took much longer than the others. There were tears. But today she is my most avid reader among the kids.
Dorothy is like Gloria. She’s been doing Reading Eggs, but she kind of drags her feet and makes a face when I tell her to do it. And she fully brings the misery when I say she’s going to read to me. So! I’m starting over. We did the first lesson from the above book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. And do you know what, she laughed during the lesson! I’m sold.
I forgot about the cute Usborne phonics readers where the proficient reader reads the harder text and the newb reads the easier bit on each page. Much more fun because you get a good story instead of the odd ones that come up in most CVC books. I have a few of them (somewhere?) and I went to buy the rest and found this My First Reading Library set for just a little more, so I got it instead.
I hope they’re as fun as I remember. If nothing else they’ll work as read alouds, and there’s Clementine, Peregrine and Malcolm coming up behind Dorothy who might like them too. Hashtag justification of splurge. And then another Bookshark mom mentioned them on Instagram too so it must be fate 🙂
I’ll update in a week or so after Dorothy’s had a chance to settle in.
