Basic Reading

So she knows her letters and their sounds really well, and she has the concept of "sounding it out" from the Leap Frog video The Talking Words Factory. She isn't great at sounding it out, yet, but she is interested, and so we're working on it. Recently I made groups of flash cards, using the Hop on Pop book for word ideas. One group I made had the words hop, pop, stop, on, and no. I should have left out no, because the "o" says a long "o" sound instead of a short "o" sound. Otherwise it went fabulous. I showed her the word pop and we sounded it out. Then the other words in turn. She would assimilate the word on the page into her understanding out loud, saying things like, "Hop! Like a bunny hops!" and "Pop! like popcorn!" I thought that was great - it showed she was truly reading, not just putting together sounds. Then I gave her a simple sentence - "Hop on pop." She was totally tickled that she could read it. Then we did "Stop!" I meant it to be "Stop, don't hop on pop," but she said something else like, "Stop! Like you are at a red light and you have to stop!" Another group of words from the Hop on Pop book is cat, hat, bat, and I think mat. Also ball, wall, fall, and all. When we've done all the words from the book, I'm going to let her read it!

Counting Puzzles

I found a really cool counting puzzle at a church rummage sale. For the number one, it has the number on one puzzle piece, a picture of one kite on another puzzle piece, and the number one spelled out on a third, each of these pieces fitting together. Then a piece with the number 2, a piece with 2 butterflies or something, and the number two spelled out. The puzzle is set up so that the picture of 6 cats only fits with the puzzles pieces "6" and "six." It goes from numbers 1-20. I was really surprised when we got it out and my daughter actually counted 20 items almost perfectly. She LOVES putting the puzzles together. And then we put them in order 1-20, which is another challenge altogether.