My skills

If you are a home schooling parent like me, you don’t fully value your competence and your expertise. Although you have a three year old reading at first grade level, you don’t think you did something great. Your friends and colleagues congratulate you, but you don’t congratulate yourself. I use to be that mom, but I know better now. I want to share what I do and how I taught my children to be full fledged readers at 3 years old. I begin teaching my children by focusing on alphabet (song and recognition). I use a series of tools. Brainy Baby DVDS, my own voice and other educational DVDS with relevant materials. I also allow lots of scribble time. I have tons of notebooks and scrap paper, readily available. I sing the alphabet as the preferred lullaby. In addition to that, I encourage them to start spelling words, or noticing letters in word formation. Once they mastered that, I move on to the sounds of the letters. From sounds, we begin reading. The experts (my hubby) state that recognizing alphabets and sounds are reading. My 3 year old just finished an entire book, published for 4-6 year olds, today. I also love Reader Rabbit software once they learned some basic reading. Once reading is mastered, I begin addition. Along learning the alphabet, I also teach the numbers. We have a number wall chart. They begin by counting to 20. It’s easier to get them to 20 because it’s a no brainer after that. They learn the pattern and feel pretty good about themselves. Once numbers are learned to 20, they start tracing numbers and coloring them as needed. I begin arithmetic once we get to 100. Here is my early math program. I have a collection of water bottle caps. I number two sets 1-9. I also have three extras which I use for signs and symbols of math (+, -, =, etc.) We begin by using the numbers to form equations. Then we use real tools to help us solve the equations. For example, we can use either trains, pencils, or anything that the child has an affiliation for to show how they can get more of that special thing or share and get less. Again the experts state that making math more relevant and hands on is the way to get them excited about it. The abstract math of yesteryear is well passé…finally! Here is a sample problem. 3 + 2 = Under each number, the child puts the object (trains, pencils, etc) under each number. And to solve it, they bring them together. So the problem becomes: you have 3 trains and mommy gives you 2 more, how many do you have in all? The object is in is hands; it is real. He can relate and able to solve it easily and with more interest. The sky is the limit after this foundation has been laid. I hope this helps you, but remember that each child will learn differently. Be flexible and enjoy!