Learning More Than Ever...

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Reading Program Update 3.

My DD is continuing to progress in reading. During the past week I was going through our reading materials to figure out the action plan with her reading program.

So I decided to use at the moment:

1.Little Reader Lessons and LR Books

( I am showing it to a Baby A, and DD most of the time wants to watch it too)

2. Preschool Prep Readers level 1

3."I see Sam " readers and flashcards.

4. Reading Bear.

5. Signing Time1 DVDs

6. Lot of books/ easy readers/ that I borrowed from the library.

7. Your Child Can Read DVDs

8. Signing Time 1 DVDs and home made flashcards for them.

Now a little more in depth about the books that we will be using.

We have been reading Preschool Prep Books level 1 last week and DD loves them, we will keep rereading them until DD will get bored with them.

We are also using "I see Sam " readers and flashcards. I am kind of on the fence about these readers. At the moment we are on the books from set 1. I retired the first 3 books from the set already. The story plot in these books a little "Tom and Jerry" type ( pushing, getting mad, spilling paint so far....) It may be appealing to older kids. So far I was able to explain to DD what is going on on the picture, but I will be reviewing each of them before showing it to her.

We also using LR books. Both my DD and I love these books very much. I am very happy that we got them, as I see them as an excellent tool to build up her reading vocabulary. I am glad that I started to teach DD using whole word approach. Her speed in reading (even though she have been officially reading only for 2 weeks) is remarkable. And I totally credit it to the whole word approach, since instead of wasting time on decoding a word she knows it right away.

I also borrowed about 25 of books/ easy readers/ from the library. DD likes to look through them and she likes to be read to. At the moment she needs to build up her concentration and reading confidence. Even if the book is at her reading level, she still prefers first to read it together and look at the pictures, talk about what is happening there and only then she would be concentrated enough to read the book by herself.

I retired Preschool Prep "Meet the Sight Words 3 DVD" and "Meet the Phonics 3 DVD" , and kept flashcards only for reviewing .

Starting today I will be adding Signing time to our reading program. I made paper flashcards for all 25 DVDs using Little Reader program, long time ago and I want DD to review them, plus we will be actively teaching Sign Language to a Baby A. This will be an addition to his reading program consisting of TW and LR Lessons.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Chinese Language Program:

I have to confess that both me and my DD we just love Mandarin Language! I love it so much that I am taking a challenge to teach my DD to read in Chinese.

We have been doing the program for a week and I have to say that all of my family is enjoying it :) !

This is my DD reading Chinese Characters: ( DD surprised me by recognizing the characters on the third day of the program, so I decided to take a video) She did not mastered them yet, but we have a solid start :)

The materials that we are using so far:

1 Little Reader Chinese curriculum.

The LR software is an amazing tool in teaching a child!

You can click here to download a free 14 days trial of Little Reader Software and Chinese Curriculum to it here (no credit card or future billing required)

http://www.brillkids.com/ra.php?BKAFF29000

We love Little Reader Chinese curriculum!

"The Little Reader Chinese Curriculum will help you teach your young child to recognize thousands of Simplified or Traditional Chinese characters, understand their meanings, and to learn to speak Mandarin.

Fully customizable lessons progress from single characters all the way up to complete stories. Using Little Reader's Pattern Phonics™ system, the Chinese Curriculum will also familiarize your child with the pinyin system (Mandarin phonetics), setting the foundations for further learning of Mandarin in the future."

I do not mind that images and videos are the same that in English curriculum. Actually I think that it helps to make a connection between the languages. I tell my DD to say the certain word in Chinese and she understands what I am asking her and has no problem answering. It is even easier when using flashcards. Baby A is just being exposed to the program at the moment.

2. We are using Wink to Learn Chinese:

http://www.winktolearn.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=7&category_id=25&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=2&view=details

Some reviewers do not like the fact that sometimes the picture, used to represent word in this program , is not exactly matches the word. For example: you hear " eye" and see the picture of two eyes. But I think it is not bad. it is very natural to see a picture of 2 eyes for a child and parent can make clarifications for a child. I would understand the complains if there would be some unnatural images, like 3 eyes or 3 feet :) ...

So, DD loves this program as well, especially because some of the lessons have children's songs at the end.

3. I Can Read Series 1 (130 Word Cards)

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BLF107

The thing that I like about this program is that it is organized in certain manner.

There are 5 levels:

Level 1 consists of 130 large flashcards of Chinese characters with a cute picture in the back of it .

My DD loves to use this flashcards, we are not using them for flashing but for reviewing.

I am very excited to continue the Chinese Language Program with my DD.

I will be posting updates.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Reading Program Update 2.

Today I want to share my DD's success with reading program.

Yesterday DD read her first book all by herself. ( Preschool Prep Company Sight Word Reader)!

It felt so great to be able to witness that. I feel like it is a major breakthrough for us!

Just a couple of weeks ago I was trying without any luck to show and to explain to my DD the way that she needs to read a book: start from the title, read page by page without skipping any, word by word, line by line, from left to right! and yesterday she read a book following some of the rules!

Today in the morning she read 3 more books to me (Preschool Prep Company Sight Word Readers) : effortlessly and really enjoying a process! She was so happy to be reading a book to her Mommy! Just the day before she was "reading" a book fully concentrating on the pictures only and not paying attention to the words. She was or making up her own story, matching it to the picture in the book or she was reciting by memory the books that we read to her. Even today if she didn't know the word ,she was not trying to decode it using Phonics ( she already knows her letter sounds, digraphs and blends ), she was just trying to guess it by context and picture.

I know that it is just the beginning and there are so much more that she needs to learn, but I feel like now we have a solid structure to build up her reading skill on.

For now my DD just mastered sight reading. She did not crack the phonics code yet. But I am sure she will do it soon!

Which programs did we use that helped us to get to this point?

1. Little Reader Software. I did 1 year curriculum with DD .

The LR software is an amazing tool in teaching a child!

You can click here to download a free 14 days trial of Little Reader Software here (no credit card or future billing required)

http://www.brillkids.com/ra.php?BKAFF29000

2. Preschool Prep Company "Meet the Sight Words'' and "Meet the Phonics series"

http://www.preschoolprepco.com/h/s/preppks.php

3. Reading Bear Program.

http://www.readingbear.org/

So what i will be doing this week to help my daughter to advance in her reading:

1. Practice reading using books:

a. Preschool Prep Company readers ( making sure she learns all the new words in those books)

b. I will start using "I see Sam " readers and flashcards.

2. Watch LR categories to review the words.

3. Reading Bear program.

4. Preschool Prep Flashcards and "Meet the Phonics DVDs" review.

5. Your Child Can Read DVDs

Baby A.'s Reading Program:

We do LR lessons, which he loves. Plus he is being exposed to many things that I do with his sister.

We also do TweedleWink Program.

http://www.rightbrainkids.com/component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,shop.flypage5/product_id,187/category_id,26/manufacturer_id,0/option,com_virtuemart/Itemid,26/

I used to show a lesson a day for 3 days to them.

Now we are doing a lesson 2 times a day for a day.

I want to go fast through all 48 lessons and then to start over again.

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Happy Learning!

Monday, January 30, 2012

Reading Program Update 1.

On Mondays I will be posting our Reading Program updates.

DD 29 month old:

During the past week we focused on reading, and it payed off big time!

As I mentioned before, DD could sight read couple hundreds of words, but she never cracked the phonics code...

For the past week we were reviewing letter sounds, blends, digraphs and sight words using Preschool Prep Company DVDs and Flashcards.

http://www.preschoolprepco.com/h/p/index.php

DD mastered most of them, she does make a mistake here and there but in general 98% of time she knows them! We also reviewed Preschool Prep Sight words DVDs and she knows most of them except the ones starting with H and Th, so we will continue working on those.

We also been using Reading Bear program http://www.readingbear.org/ Both my children just love it.

After couple days using Reading Bear ,DD started sounding out words. She does not blend them properly yet. And she tends to end every word with "t" automatically and only after said "t" reads the propper sound, ex. b a t,m; c a t,b .

We also have been reading some books together, but no new titles.

I will be looking through Book list thread posted on BrillKids forum:

http://forum.brillkids.com/homeschooling/book-list/.

So... Goals for the next week:

will add them tomorrow.