We have begun using the Bob Books learning to read curriculum and I love how repetitive and easy the books are for new readers. My daughter is flying through the first four books! The first book covers the short a sound along with the consonants m, s, and t. To help reinforce her learning we used our sticky sticks to trace the letters “at” and “am.” I had written the endings of the words on a sheet and we’d form the additional letter to make the word we were reviewing. In the first book the words we covered were: Sam, Mat and sat. As my gal is really kinetic we traced the letters after we made them . . . and then we did silly things like make the sticks into “wands” to point at the words.
A tip for encouraging word blending:
My friend Kristen gave me some terrific advice. For a while, my daughter was stuck at the “s-a-t” stage, where she would sound out the letters individually but had a hard time realizing they formed a word. Rather than sounding out each letter independently, sound them out in blends. “s-a-t” becomes, “sa”+”at.” My daughter totally “got it” the after a round of sounding out our words with this new method!
–Rachel M. is a mom to three preschoolers blogging at Quirky Momma.
http://quirkymomma.com
@Quirkymommasite
