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mathmama
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| Posted: Dec 09 2008 at 6:33am | IP Logged
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My oldest dd, Therese, is 4. She has always seemed like a very intelligent little girl. She started speaking very early and picks up things on her own. She knows alot of things for her age, imo. She has been writing her name for over a year now and the way it came about was quite remarkable. She asked me to write her name and I did on a magnadoodle. She erased it and then proceeded to write the first 3 letters of her name perfectly (that was all that would fit for her  ). She learned the rest of her letters and numbers (identifying and writing) with no real help from me. Really, she just learned them, I am not really sure how. She started counting at a very young age. She recently counted to 100 with little help from me (I just had to remind her how to figure out what comes after 69, for instance). She knows how to spell words like mom, dad and love. She has a ton of knowledge about our Faith.
At the beginning of the summer I thought we would start to learn how to read. I have the CHC Little Stories for Little Folks curriculum. She enjoyed learning what sounds the letters make, it seems. Then we went into the two letter blends and she was bored stiff and was always "tired". I didn't push it. I recently tried to pick it up with her again with the same result. But now I am getting worried. One part of me says that she is still young and there isn't a chance that she will never learn to read. The other part of me wonders why a girl that seems so intelligent can't or doesn't want to do this.
Given how she has learned everything else, it seems to me that one day she will just read, iykwim. But is that possible?? I know I am just a mom that is over reacting with her first born, but I need someone else to say that to me.
Thanks for reading,
Beth
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Dec 09 2008 at 6:53am | IP Logged
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My ds was the same way- he picked up letters and sounds easily as an older 3 yo, and all the while he was 4 was very interested in writing letters, etc but wasn't interested at all in two letter blends. I dropped that quickly and just kept on reading to him.
Last fall, when he was almost five, I started him on the pink Montessori series, which was very fun and interesting for him. Now he just turned 6 and is working through the CHC LSLF series. The two letter blends still take concentration, though he easily learns them.
I honestly think that at a younger age the two letter concept is too abstract- they just want to play with and master the single letters and sounds. Your dd sounds like she's doing very, very well as is.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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missionfamily
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| Posted: Dec 09 2008 at 7:47am | IP Logged
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Beth--Perhaps Bob books would be a little less intimidating at this point? My first was an early learner and I started him on 100 Easy Lessons at 4 1/2 and he hated it. I switched to Bob books and he started reading much the way you describe your dd learning to write her name. I read the little story to him, he picked it up again and read it out loud. Iasked him if he could sound out a couple of thewords, he did...moved on to the next book and so forth. By the time we finished the first set, he was reading quite proficiently.
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montessori_lori
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| Posted: Dec 09 2008 at 9:18am | IP Logged
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Actually, Maria Montessori said that 2-3 years of age was a sensitive period for letters. But 4-5 isn't as much, really. It can depend on the child.
There's nothing wrong with her - just make sure you that keep things light and fun, and stop working when she shows that she's had enough.
Have you tried something irresistible like pink series objects with labels to match? Or, to start, pink series objects with little cards that just have the first letter of each object.
If you've been using workbooks, many kids find those unappealing so that could be part of the problem. Using things like language games, objects, fun books, etc. usually does the trick :)
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CatholicMommy
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| Posted: Dec 09 2008 at 9:30am | IP Logged
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My son is going through the same thing - he didn't learn the blends as much as he should have at his Montessori school last year - now we're making up for it and it's HARD. We finally had a break-through on Thanksgiving weekend - we just moved ahead anyway - and he suddenly got the concept - he just needed to actually read and when he got to a word with an "th" for example, it was in context to explain that this combination makes its own sound. And he got it.
I was ever so relieved!
(what's interesting is that he has an "sh" and a "ua" in his name, so you'd think that blends would not be a problem for him!)
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Willa
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One thing that has been working for me and my young readers is little handwritten stories. I think Montessori talks about these a bit. You write out little phonetic sentences about things going on in daily life -- what you write depends on the interests of the child, and the child can tell them to you for you to write down. Then you read them back. You can cut out the individual words, if the child has the patience, and reassemble them to make new sentences.
Then there are, I think they are called "command cards". You write down a verb "jump" "run" "clap" and then the child acts them out or you take turns.
You can build on them: "the dog jumps" "the baby runs" etc.
Another thing that basically transitioned my youngest into reading at age 5 was simply pointing to the words as I read aloud to him. He basically took off from there into reading, though we are bolstering it up with some phonics now because he simply reads by sight.
Four is very young. I think very small children have a lot of physical difficulty focusing on small-size print. Even if they can do it, it is a strain to them. So I bet she really is tired. My daughter who had a lot of intellectual curiosity was trying to read The Hobbit and Romeo and Juliet before she had turned six. She couldn't, though, even though she was reading at quite an advanced level, because her eyes tired out too quickly. In fact, though she learned to read earlier than her brothers, she took longer to get to the stage of reading complex books, and I wonder if it was because she was so young when she learned to read.... I think it was difficult for her physically to focus her eyes, whereas the later readers in the family never had that transition to make.
I am sure your daughter will show you how she best learns as time goes on. One other thing to remember is that sometimes a child makes an advance and then settles back and consolidates for a little while before pushing forward again. In the "down time" you can work on language experience in different ways. Or so I've found.
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Willa
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lilac hill
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Dd#3 can memorize so much that she hears.always has, but did not start reading independently intil she was 9+. She is bright in so many ways but reading just did not happen for her. We used the CHC little readers, 100 Easy Lessons, dictation, and eventually one page of her sister's much beloved Brambly Hedge books.
My only advice is to try to be peaceful about this. After all, if DD#3 had not been a slower reader we would not have done all of her Greek , Roamn and early British history together, as well as so many read alouds.
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violingirl
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| Posted: Dec 10 2008 at 8:39am | IP Logged
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my son is 3 and is just like how you described your daughter- very interested in letters and how to spell things. He's technically ready for blends, but bored with them and at this age I don't want to make reading a daily lesson type of thing.
So we're hanging out with the pink series and he loves those cards. I think the command cards someone else suggested above could be a good fun jump into blends. We also do a lot of sounding out of short words, where he will figure out which letter comes next to spell the word. That is probably his favorite thing. My mother is giving him a moveable alphabet for Christmas and I'm sure he will get a ton of use out of it.
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4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder
Topic: just need some reassurance
