Baby Writer on the Move

Damien's masterpiece is done and he is on the move again.


with How to Teach Your Baby to Write

Damien is 6 months, 2 weeks old

Damien's First Anatomy Lesson: "This is Your Foot!"

"Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:" 

Psalm 8:6

Hunter is 6 years, 4 months old
Damien is 7 weeks, 6 days old

Our Adventures with Baby Sign Language

Hunter at 14 months, signing "please" and "ball" while simultaneous verbalizing "ball"

I look back and our journey with baby sign language with great fondness and appreciation.

It was long before we heard about Doman, or many of the other early learning topics I now am familiar with, but it nonetheless found its way into our lives in an unexpected way and I now can't imagine how his early toddlerhood would have been without it.

Before Hunter was born and during his early infancy, I had never heard of the concept as this was back in 2005 and in the very beginning of the "trend". When Hunter was four months old, with my mom's prompting I ordered the book Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk from a catalog.

How thrilled I was for the exciting possibilities!

At five months I started teaching him some sign language. I don't remember how many signs I tried to teach him in the beginning, but at seven months I was ecstatic when he finally reproduced his first sign: more.

Thereafter, he discovered the power of this type of communication and began using the sign "more" for pretty much everything. It seemed like the sign evolved to mean "I want" more than its actual definition.

Perhaps because of the versatility of this sign, he didn't mimic any more signs for what seemed like an eternity. Until finally, at eleven months old, he had some sort of signing breakthrough.

Within a month, he learned to sign "all done," "eat," "drink," "hot," "up," (his was slightly different) and "night night."

At twelve months he learned the ever-popular "please," followed by "hair brush", "phone", "toothbrush," and "hat".

By thirteen and fourteen months he learned "down," "come," "thank you," "water," "book," and "bath," followed by "milk," "dog," "ball," "outside," and "Cheerios" (which he made up - would pinch his thumb and forefinger together).

And then, it seemed like just as soon as our signing adventure had begun, it was over.

At fifteen months he began talking a great deal - within that month he learned to say almost two dozen words, whereas before he could only say a handful. He still used sign language, and that month picked up the new signs of "yes", "car", and, some things I never got a chance to get a picture of - "no", "hair", "listen", "headphones", and "iPod" (yes, he made up the sign for iPod too - it involved him sticking his forefinger and thumb in both ears as if he were putting in earbuds).

Then, the next month, he started really talking. In fact, even to a mother who had religiously written down every single possible milestone since he was born, from "first visit to the mall" to "first bandaid" to, well, pretty much everything, he had me beaten. He was learning to say new words at a rate that even I couldn't keep up with, and things just set off from there.

And that was about it.

For a long time he continued to often use his signs along with the spoken words, as you can see in the above video of him signing and saying "ball" and "please". In fact, certain signs, such as please, stuck with him until he was probably two and a half - he would always rub his stomach while saying "please"! But from that point on, he didn't really learn any new signs, simply because he could pretty much say everything verbally, and preferred communicating that way. And in spite of my intention to keep them in our life (as sort of a foreign language experience), they ended up falling by the wayside and fading into the past.

I was definitely surprised, and a little bit saddened, when it ended so soon. I had so many signs that I wanted to teach him, and it was all so much fun! But the experience definitely enriched our lives, and as I said, I couldn't imagine his early toddlerhood without it.

Giving him the tools to communicate without whining was so incredibly priceless. He could say if he wanted up or down, if he was thirsty, if he was tired, if he wanted to go outside, even talk to me about what he saw or wanted, such as a ball or the dog. It's so hard to imagine how this period of life would have gone without him having these tools, and thankfully I don't have to.

And even though it was hard to see it go, it served its purpose, and that's what counts.

Looking beyond the temporary benefits of tools of communication, another thing I am thankful for is the benefit it served him for the rest of his lifetime. As this study showed,

Results of the study revealed that 24-month-old babies using baby sign language were on average talking more like 27- or 28-month-olds, representing more than a three-month advantage over the non-signers. The babies using baby sign language were also putting together significantly longer sentences. In addition, 36-month-old signers on average were talking like 47-month-olds, putting them almost a full year ahead of their average age mates. At 8 years, those who had used sign language as babies scored an average of 12 points higher in IQ on the WISC-III than their non-signing peers.

That is another reason I look so fondly on it, as it was one of our first "early learning" endeavors. And I know that even just in that short time period, it gave him a boost for the rest of his life.

It was definitely a fun adventure.

It didn't always go as expected. It ended a lot sooner than I thought it would. He started talking a lot earlier than I was prepared for. He surprised me by making up his own signs, or by his funny interpretations of the signs I taught him. He never did sign a lot of words I taught him for months, such as "mom" or "help." He even did something I never anticipated, and started signing in two- and three-word sentences, such as "drink water please".

But all in all, isn't that how all parenting tends to go? Not exactly how we expected?

I'm very thankful to have had this wonderful chance to learn together with my baby. And I can't wait to start with the next one!

"And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand..." 

Exodus 13:9

What about you? What was your experience with baby signs?

Making the Jump to Reading Fluency

I took another video of Hunter reading the a couple days ago. Here he is, reading Curious George Feeds the Animals, a library book, for the first time.

He has all of the sudden made that jump from reading word-by-word to reading sentence-by-sentence. He actually reads, most books, almost as fluently as you or I.

I'm not quite sure how it happened. And it's always nice, for myself at least, when I can document each step of the way, and measure how much my son knows and how much he doesn't know. But really, he has thrown me through a loop. All of the sudden he's figured out all these phonics rules that I never got around to teaching him and, well, just, reads.

"And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses." 

Leviticus 10:11

Hunter is 5 years, 6 months old

Some past videos I've posted of his reading updates:

Reading Bob Books - (14 months ago)
Reading Phonics Lesson Book - (10 months ago)
Reading a "In the City and on the Farm" - (3 months ago)

For This, My Son, Have I Taught You... Hunter Reading from the KJV

 

"So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society..." 

-John Quincy Adams

With great fanfare, on Hunter's half birthday, I announced that now that he was five and a half, he was finally big enough to read from the Bible.

And without hesitation, Hunter read Genesis chapter one from the King James Bible.

I cried.

This very Bible, that he read from, was a gift I bought him almost three years ago.

I was a young mom. Early and hopeful in my adventures with Doman, wielding away for hours upon hours and carefully painting big, red-lettered words on long strips of card stock for my two and a half year old son. I wanted to teach him how to read.

There had always been a bigger picture involved in our educational pursuits. I told him, again and again, as I repeated for years, that the reason he must learn how to read, the reason I was teaching him, was so that one day, he would be able to read the Bible for himself.

In preparation for that day, I searched for a Bible with bigger print for his little eyes. I eventually settled for a $12 Giant Print Bible from Amazon. That Bible has stayed with us for years, all in anticipation of this moment.

It has been our companion reading together for hundreds upon hundreds of hours, but alway with the intention that, one day, my son, you will read from this all by yourself, every day of your life, to know the wisdom of God in your life.

Hunter, age one, with his first Bible, fun,
but with too small of print for little eyes

And so it finally happened. My baby has become a true reader.

Maybe I didn't realize it was coming, and maybe him turning the half-year mark had nothing to do with it (it convinced him, right?), but he has crossed the threshold. He made a milestone.

And it is moments like these, where everything in parenting, was worth it.

"And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them"

Deuteronomy 17:19

Hunter is 5 years, 6 months old

Walking through the Science Encyclopedias

Hunter really loves to draw.

And in the past few months, he has become quite keen on writing, too.

So we have decided to combine this along with his interest in science to create a sort of copy work / narrating activity that also involves illustration.

It started out as just reading together for leisure (from some science encyclopedias we got for $1 at a yard sale). But then I decided to go ahead and have him "narrate" what we just read (tell me what we just learned about, in his own words) and he started wanting to draw about it, too.

Which resulted in this...

The aardvark is an african mammal. It digs in dirt and scoops up ants and termit[es] with its tongue. Its scientific name is Orycteropus afer.

Yes, I realize that he misspelled termites and that, for some reason, he put "name is" after its name. But we'll work on that.

The "copy work" aspect is that I write down what he tells me, and then he in turn copies it in onto his story paper (which has unfortunately large lines, making for not too much space to write).

This has been great to work on his drawing (we have been having lessons on drawing what you see and really paying attention to the way the lines go), his comprehension and speaking skills (hence the narration part), and the copy work is to work on his spelling, punctuation, word spacing, and ideally handwriting (although he didn't exactly do his "best" handwriting here, but not too bad).

This is an activity that, if I would have assigned it to him a year and a half ago, he would have hated. But now he actually found it quite enjoyable, and is looking forward to illustrating (and narrating) the encyclopedia entries for abacus and abrasion and absolute zero (good luck on that one, right?).

"...Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua..." 

Exodus 17:14

Hunter is 5 years, 4 months old

Hunter's Reading Update

I haven't video taped Hunter reading in a while so I decided to take a little clip from him reading his 1940's school textbook earlier today.

His reading is getting better in that he is able to read a lot more words by sight, his speed is improving, and he is getting better at inflection - that is, pausing at the right times, speaking in a "talking" voice when reading words in quotations, etc.

Sometimes I don't really notice the progress but when I realize that he was still in Bob Books ten months ago, I really do see how much he has grown in this area.

I always knew that I was silly for "worrying" about his reading at age three and four, where he knew lots of words individually but really didn't have a desire to read books on his own. And here he is now, an independent reader, still growing and not yet perfect but definitely enjoying the journey and definitely going at his own pace, as always.

"To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding"

Proverbs 1:2 

Hunter is 5 years, 3 months old

Cursive Beginnings

 

Hunter has recently decided that he wants to learn how to write in cursive.

The above picture is of a free-hand lowercase alphabet he decided to make for me the other day.

I was printing out a cursive handwriting guide, something I was possibly considering teaching this fall and wanted to get him excited about it now, and he managed to smear water all over the first copy whilst helping me with the printing. Gotta love little kids help sometimes.

Feeling remorseful about destroying it, he decided that he would just "make me a new one" and proceeded to spend the next hour-ish meticulously copying the lowercase cursive alphabet onto a blank piece of paper. First in pencil, then in ink.

It was a sweet gesture, really.

Since then we have gone back to it a couple of times and he has learned to write his first name, and has been practicing (a little) the first few letters of the lowercase alphabet. No rush of course and, he thinks it's really cool. A "secret code", if you will.

Sounds good to me.

Cursive Handwriting Printable

"All this, said David, the LORD made me understand in writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern."

1 Chronicles 28:19

Hunter is 5 years, 3 months old

Computers and Word Processing

My dearly beloved son is learning the amazingly interesting and important skill of word processing on Mom's little computer.

Don't let his intense facial expression fool you. It is actually a look of deep concentration as he taps away at completely random letters in the creation of his first Word document.

My idea in this is to let him play with more useful, productive computer tasks rather than just educational games, since they are most often more "entertainment" than "education". For now, word processing and the ever popular "paint" program will be his main activities, but later on moving to more advanced photo and video editing, web design and computer programming. All, of course, as a fun game, and for the most part, teaching himself with me just there to give him a few pointers along the way.

I got the idea from the book, Preparing Sons to Provide for a Single Income Family. Not that I agree with every little piece of the book but it had a lot of useful information in raising responsible and hard-working, creative sons, this computer thing being one of them.

It also may have to do a lot with my own childhood. I used to spend hours carefully drawing elaborate scenes on the paint program. Word processing, too, was a big thing for me, as I literally taught myself how to spell well and write well with this program. You know the little spell check and grammar check? Being home schooled and for a large part of my education, self-taught, that was my biggest teacher in the English grammatical area.

So I'm kind of going along the same path with Hunter, as well. At this point, most spelling programs for his age are just phonics programs - you know, words like cat and sled. And while teaching phonics rules is great - especially for weird letter combinations like eigh and ough - I learned all that stuff in context, by reading it and writing it. And I would dare to say that I'm a pretty good speller, and that with probably less than 2% of the instruction time most kids spent on spelling lessons during their school years.

Unschooling? Sounds like it a little. But for right now, my plan is to just let him at it, encourage him to write words or stories, and show him a few things here and there, a little at a time (like how to change the font, or add a graphic, or change the margins, etc.)

The whole spell check / grammar check thing in this is a huge goal for me, besides the obvious skill of computer navigation and use. After his first time on the program tonight, and him writing a bunch of random letters, before closing it he wrote, "iluvmymom". I showed him how to use the space bar to separate the words and we watched as the computer automatically capitalized the "i", a little lesson in grammar.

Then with just one thing left, the red squiggly line under the word "luv". I showed him how to use the spell check and select the proper spelling from the generated words, and he felt so happy and accomplished afterwords.

Thanks, little guy. I love you too.

"Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee..."

Deuteronomy 4:26

Hunter is 5 years, 0 months old

Random Acts of Sweetness

I walked in on Hunter today carefully writing out the following note, which he taped to the door and excitedly announced belonged to Brandon.

"I luv mi mom and Bradin"

I love his little random acts of sweetness.

"...A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother."

Proverbs 10:1

Hunter is 5 years, 0 months old

April's Words of the Day

More word-of-the-day fun for April! Here are the fun words we will be playing with this month.

Word of the Day Flashcards (April 2010)

1. jape: a trick or practical joke.
2. gambol: to dance and skip about in play.
3. longueur: a tedious passage in a work of literature or performance art.
4. flummox: to confuse; to perplex.
5. grandiloquent: expressed in a lofty style; pompous; bombastic.
6. aegis: a shield; protection.
7. nescience: lack of knowledge or awareness.
8. chimerical: merely imaginary; fanciful.
9. impugn: to call in question; to make insinuations against.
10. frisson: a brief moment of intense excitement.
11. portend: to foreshadow; to bode.
12. pulchritude: beauty.
13. susurrus: a whispering or rustling sound.
14. labile: open to change; apt or likely to change.
15. outré: unconventional; eccentric; bizarre.
16. etiolate: to blanch or bleach; to make sickly.
17. ephemeral: lasting a very short time.
18. quiddity: the essence or nature of a thing.
19. crepuscular: pertaining to twilight.
20. stormy petrel: a type of seabird; also, one fond of bringing strife.
21. peccadillo: a slight offense; a petty fault.
22. invidious: tending to provoke envy or ill will.
23. paladin: a champion of a cause.
24. gainsay: to contradict; to deny.
25. imbroglio: a complicated and embarrassing state of things.
26. somnolent: drowsy; also, tending to cause sleepiness.
27. ken: perception, view; especially, reach of sight or knowledge.
28. eleemosynary: relating to charity; charitable.
29. bumptious: crudely, presumptuously, or noisily self-assertive.
30. mellifluous: flowing sweetly or smoothly.

"Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words."

Genesis 49:21

Hunter is 5 years, 0 months old

March's Words of the Day

More fun words of the day for March! You know your kid is liking the routine when, after you forgot one day, he askes you, "So mom, what's the word today?"

So here is the list we're using is from dictionary.com's archive. I also recently became all technologically savvy with Scribd and am able to start sharing with you all the materials I spend hours pouring over. Yay! Go here to print your own copy of March's Word of the Day flashcards.

1. lampoon: composition that imitates or misrepresents someone's style

2. sanguine: optimistic, cheerful
3. acute: serious; pervasive
4. temerity: unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger.
5. parry: deflect a blow
6. martial: pertaining to war
7. bilk: defraud, cheat, or swindle.
8. equine: of horses and hoofed animals.
9. incisive: penetrating, sharp, cutting.
10. pedestrian: walker; also, unimaginative.
11. ululate: to howl; to wail.
12. tetchy: peevish; testy; irritable.
13. inanition: exhaustion from lack of nourishment; also, emptiness.
14. esoteric: intended or understood by chosen few.
15. scintilla: a tiny amount; a spark.
16. cormorant: a gluttonous or greedy person.
17. libation: the act of pouring a liquid as a sacrifice; also, a beverage.
18. elucidate: to make clear or manifest.
19. florid: flushed with red; also, excessively ornate.
20. diatribe: a bitter verbal attack.
21. veracity: truth, truthfulness.
22. pithy: concise and forceful in description.
23. spoonerism: the transposition of usually initial sounds in a pair of words.
24. thaumaturgy: the performing of miracles or magic.
25. tumult: the commotion or agitation of a crowd.
26. propinquity: nearness.
27. feckless: ineffective; weak; worthless.
28. velleity: a slight wish or inclination.
29. osculation: the act of kissing; a kiss.
30. ludic: playful.
31. contretemps: something inopportune or embarrassing.

"Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words."

Genesis 49:21

Hunter is 4 years, 11 months old

Curious Mind

So this morning, in the middle of eating his breakfast, Hunter came upstairs and asked me, "Mom, why do Cheerios float to the top in milk instead of sink to the bottom?" (hand motions accompanied)

I'm used to this type of questioning, but, today was particularly humorous, as while I gave him my best attempt at explaining density and buoyancy, he sat there, with his head tilted, elbow resting on a box with his chin cupped so elegantly in his hand, staring intently at me as I continued with my presentation.

Thirty seconds later, as soon as I was done, he sat up, walked out of the room, and said with a smile, "Ok, thanks for letting me know."

He is asking questions all the time but I just started cracking up laughing when he left the room, wondering "What was that about?"

He has, as usual, been full of laughs. He has really been into story-telling lately, coming up with all kinds  of adventures which usually involve him protecting his cousins from the eminent dangers of the jungle or some other animal-laden arena. Last night, he told me that tomorrow he was going to tell me a story, and explained that, "Yeah, I'm going to think about it, and then tomorrow I'll just spit it out!"

His most off the wall comment lately though was theological in nature. He had asked me (for the umpteenth time) why God had decided to make people. My answer, among other things, included that God wanted to have friends. Hunter, after a few moments, told me, "Well God doesn't want to be friends with the Indians, because they don't know that you're supposed to cover your nakedness."

(This was followed by a lengthy explanation, that God still wants to be friends with people even if they're naked, among other things.) The things that go through this kid's head!

"Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently..." 

Deuteronomy 13:14

Hunter is 4 years, 10 months old

February Words of the Day

Some more fun words of the day for this month. This is list is taken from dictionary.com's February 2009 Word of the Day Archive. Go to that link to see expanded definitions and pronunciation of all the words listed here!

To learn more about our word of the day adventures, click here.

1. victuals: supply of food

2. chaff: seed coverings; detritus
3. defalcate: take fraudulently
4. virtuoso: exceptional performer
5. unwitting: lacking knowledge
6. erstwhile: former; formerly
7. denigrate: belittle, attack maliciously
8. highhanded: with haughty disregard
9. toady: someone who is servile
10. osteopath: therapist who manipulates body structure
11. tome: large scholarly book
12. froward: willfully contrary
13. expurgate: to remove offensive parts
14. myopia: nearsightedness
15. pinchbeck: something that is counterfeit
16. interminable: seeming to have no end
17. burnish: to polish and make shiny
18. consternation: a sudden dread
19. tautological: needlessly repetitious
20. ellipsis: omission of word(s)
21. hermetic: airtight; protected
22. nocuous: harmful
23. beseech: ask for earnestly
24. peculate: appropriate fraudulently
25. openhanded: giving freely
26. declaim: speak against
27. hidebound: stubbornly conservative
28. pedant: person holding books in esteem

"Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words."

Genesis 49:21

Hunter is 4 years, 11 months old

Vocabulary

We did this along time ago but we are starting up again for the new year. I have been getting words off of dictionary.com's Word of the Day feature for a while now, giving Hunter a new word to play with every day. It has been an on-again, off-again occurrence, and we haven't been doing it in a while now, but we're back and at it again (and really excited about it).

When I first started doing this, I thought it would be a cool and logical idea, but had no idea how much fun we would have with it.

A lot of the words have resulted in a fun imaginary story to act them out and explain them, such as camarilla (a group of secret and often scheming advisers), or deus ex machina (an agent who appears unexpectedly to solve an apparently insoluble difficulty). 

So, here we are back at it again. These are the words of the day for January (taken from the January 2009 list on dictionary.com)

1. wanderlust: impulse to travel
2. xanthous: yellowish
3. yegg: burglar or safecracker
4. zealous: very enthusiastic
5. abstinent: self-restraining
6. beleaguer: force to quit; upset
7. candor: honesty
8. daunt: cause to lose courage
9. eclectic: varying in style
10. fastidious: hard to please
11. gargantuan: huge
12. hapless: deserving pity
13. iconoclast: critic of ideas
14. jettison: throw away or over
15. kinetic: moving
16. laissez-faire: non-interference
17. magnanimous: generous and noble
18. narcolepsy: sleep disorder
19. obscure: less visible or clear
20. pandiculation: yawning and stretching
21. qualitative: based on qualities
22. rancor: deep anger and ill will
23. sallow: unhealthy looking
24. talisman: lucky charm
25. unconscionable: lacking conscience
26. vacuous: inanely foolish
27. wanton: behaving lewdly
28. yielding: giving in
29. acclaim: approval
30. bemoan: regret and complain
31. canine: doglike

"Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words." 

Genesis 49:21

Hunter is 4 years, 9 months old

Monkey Learns to Read

Tonight Hunter announced that monkey was going to learn how to read.

We sat down to read together and Hunter brought me the book, How Do Dinosaurs Learn to Read? To which he then proclaimed, "Monkey is going to learn how to read."

"How are you going to teach him?" I asked, curiously.

He thought about it for a minute, then said, "I will say the words, then he will say the words. And he will learn them."

Then, he sat down with the book, monkey on his lap, and starting running monkey's hands across the words.

Ah, the refreshing educational philosophy of a four-year-old.

"Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes." 

Psalm 119:12

Hunter is 4 years, 9 months old 

Hunter Reading

Hunter is getting better at reading!

He has really taken off with his reading since we moved, I am so proud of his efforts, he has been reading a lot lately and it has been paying off. He has especially been getting better at automatically recognizing many sight words, such as to, it, have, so, etc. He learned these words by simply reading them many times, not by specifically memorizing them.

The best thing about it is that he really loves to read now. He offers to read to me more than he asks me to read to him! And that is saying something for this little boy. I'm so glad that he is finally getting to experience the joy and satisfaction of reading.

"...What is written in the law? how readest thou?" 

Luke 10:26

Hunter is 4 years, 7 months old

Thanksgiving Reading

I finally found some good Thanksgiving poetry. The poem below was written by William Bradford, the governor and historian of the plymouth colony.

I also found a few more on this website that we have been reading. Some of them were cheesy "turkey day" poems but there were a lot of good ones. We are also reading through Psalm 100, the "thanksgiving psalm".

And lastly, we are reading Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford again this year. We're reading it online, since I couldn't find a full, unedited copy at the library. These readings and poetry have been great for learning more about our Christian heritage, which I am very excited about.

Here is the poem:


From my years young in days of youth,
God did make known to me his truth,
And call'd me from my native place
For to enjoy the means of grace.
In wilderness he did me guide,
And in strange lands for me provide.
In fears and wants, though weal and woe,
A pilgrim, past I to and fro:
Oft left of them whom I did trust;
How vain it is to rest on dust!
A man of sorrows I have been,
And many changes I have seen.
Wars, wants, peace, plenty, have I known;
And some advanc'd, others thrown down.
The humble poor, cheeful and glad;
Rich, discontent, sower and sad:
When fears and sorrows have been mixt,
Consolations came betwixt.
Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust,
Fear not the things thou suffer must;
For, whom he loves he doth castise,
And then all tears wipes from their eyes.
Farewell, dear children, whom I love,
Your better Father is above:
When I am gone, he can supply;
To him I leave you when I die.
Fear him in truth, walk in his ways,
And he will bless you all your days.
My days are spent, old age is come,
My strength it fails, my glass near run:
Now I will wait, when work is done,
Until my happy change shall come,
When from my labours I shall rest,
With Christ above for to be blest.

"Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage."

 Psalm 119:54

Hunter is 4 years, 7 months old

Hunter Reading

As I've mentioned before, Hunter has known how to read for a while. He can read a lot of whole words by sight and figured out the basics of phonics pretty much effortlessly. The problem is, he just really doesn't (usually) care to read on his own, which I can't blame him for. He LOVES being read to and will ask for many, many books each day, but reading them on his own is just a little too, um, slow.

I haven't really worried about it but, I know how important reading is and have been thinking of ways to motivate him to practice reading so he can become more fluent. I know that once he gets started, there will be no stopping him.

So I've been having him read to me every day, preferably twice or more. At first he was a little reluctant but after less than a week, he has become very excited about reading aloud to me. I hung a sticker chart on his dresser and he gets to put a sticker on it for every book he reads.

The book he read in this video - the Bob Book series' "Muff and Ruff" - has been his book of choice for three days in a row. It was his fourth time reading it. It is wonderful to see how quickly he has progressed even in just a few days, and is reading words much more quickly and only sounding out occasionally.

"...and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them"

Deuteronomy 17:19

Hunter is 4 years, 4 months old

Read, read, read...

Hunter reading from a phonics reader, inspired to earn stickers on his new reading chart.

This book, by Son Light curriculum, has a lot of funny stories and ends with your child reading at a about 2nd grade level. He really likes this one nowadays and has been really inspired to read.

"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

2 Timothy 2:15

Hunter is 4 years, 4 months old