Do You Teach Your Kids To Read – How is it Going?

Hello friend, welcome back to Azy Reading Journey website. That is Azy sitting in the chair with the book. Well, it looks like he is stuck on first DVD in Lesson 1 of the Reading program for now. At this time his mother does not have a set time to teach him, so that is also contributing to him not settling down. He still loves to listen to the Alphabet Train, sometimes he follows along nicely with the DVD and others times he walks away or he is playing with his toys. Do you teach Kids to read? How has that been going, is it working?

Reading Activities For Preschoolers

Since Azy’s mother is unavailable to teach him at this time, I will be filling in and working with Azy to get him on a schedule. In order for me to follow him on his reading journey, it is important for him have a steady routine so that he can do some reading activities at the same time every day.

That is the only way we can truly measure his progress and know if the program is really working. In addition, a regular routine needs to be in place so that I will have something to write about.

Ok, I spent some time teaching Azy. We will be following the suggested weekly viewing schedule in the instruction manual. We started out watching the DVD, we went through the part with the alphabet.

He did very well in recognizing the letters and going along with the DVD. This was not surprising, because he is going to daycare and was already learning that. He also did well with recognizing the pictures on the flashcards. You can learn more about the reading system here.

He identified one baby clapping but was not unable to identified that another baby was sleeping. He identified the girl smiling, the girl with the backpack, the boy, the buffalo, turtle, cow and a leaf.

Again, he is learning these at daycare, so it was not a surprise. The next step was to use the phonics book and then the printable worksheet. However, he started to get restless so I stopped. Do you teach Kids to read, are you familiar with this?

Four-Steps Learning System

Little Champion Reader is a four-step learning system, learn, study, read and practice. See more here.

So based on my understanding, the goal is to use the DVD to allow Azy to learn the letters and associate them with something, for example, B is for boy.

The next step, study is to recognize the information on the flashcard, followed by reading the words and sentences in the phonics book, then finish with practice, using the printable worksheets to reinforce what he learned on the DVD.

There are multiple printable work sheets, one is to be used to say and trace the letters of the alphabet. Azy started doing that at daycare a few weeks ago. The other work sheets have sentences to fill in the missing words.

I do not expect him to understand this part yet. Not to worry, everything should begin to fall into place when he starts doing it every day and becomes more familiar with the materials. This is a learning process, so even though Azy is off to a slow start, I am expecting good results.

In using the Hooked on Phonics that had cassettes instead of DVD, I saw how the cassettes helped kids focused more because they would be listening to the tape while following along with the flashcards. Then again, some kids might lose interest. However, I believe kids can learn with the cassettes or the DVD. The goal is to find a program that works.

Activities To Improve Reading Skills

I am learning that Azy loves music, when I am taking him to daycare, he wants to listen to the songs on the radio. Sometimes when you sing instead of speak, he responds quicker. If you sing A is for Apple, he responds quicker than if you say it. Azy has a drum set, a piano and a guitar and he use them often.

So, learning set to music will work well in teaching him. He loves to watch educational programs or shows with music. Like the Hooked on Phonics that I used with my kids; Little Champion Reader is set to music but it is slower.

You can read more about the Hooked on Phonics that we used here.

Azy also loves rhyming words, very often you hear him singing the songs and nursery rhymes that he is learning at daycare. So, using word families will prove useful in his learning experience.

The phonics books in program that we are using have rhyming words. When he is ready to sit longer and watch the DVD, he will be using the phonics books to reinforce what he saw on the DVD.

Magnetic letters are another of his favorite, there are letters and numbers on the refrigerator and he goes there often to play with them. As time goes on, we can incorporate these in the learning process by asking him to identify and select different letters and numbers. Eventually, he can put the letters and number in order, and start spelling words.

Test Their Knowledge

When we take Azy to the store, we usually asked him where he is and knows if he at Walmart or Publix. He can identify MacDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and Wendy’s and he knows which ones sell chicken. He can tell you where to turn to take him to daycare, and to take him home.

Therefore, based on his awareness and knowledge I believe that he is more than ready to start learning to read. What he needs now is a schedule so that he can get more familiar with the reading program.

Thank you for taking the time to read about Azy’s reading journey. I am looking forward to seeing him settle down and start enjoying more than the Alphabet Train.

I am also looking forward to hearing what you think about teaching kids to read.

Maybe you do not have any kids of your own, but you might have nieces, nephews or other some other small kids in your life.

Thanks for the visit.

More to come.