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Focusing
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OK so today we started lesson 7 of 100 easy lessons. The first problem I encountered was the fact of the letter e with a line over it. My son who already knows his letters and their sounds kept wanting to say eh when the book says to say eee as in eat. So that confused him. But then we got to the part where we rhyme and I say we are going to rhyme with EEEE and then I point to the M and say mmmmmeeee and then tell him to say it fast…and he is supposed to say ME. Well he was sooooooo confused. And he knows how to rhyme. But this concept was just kind of off the wall for him. I did it with him and he got it but then we moved to rhyming with at and taking the m and folowing it with at and saying mat. The whole lesson confused him and he wouldn’t look at the book to even see what I was pointing at. I decided to lose the script and explain it in a better way that I thought would help him understand. He refused to look at the page. He picked up a piece of paper and was playing with it. Then played with his feet and eventually the knob on the desk. I don’t mind him moving around, but he HAS to watch my finger as it touches the sound. I could not keep his focus. We both got extremely frustrated and then I closed teh book and in a frustrated tone said forget it. We’ll try it tomorrow. And he walked away all dramatic and said I hate learning. I don’t understand! He loves to do worksheets and color and memorize verses. But when he has to be quiet and listen to me read a story, especially one without tons of pictures, or he has to keep his eyes focused for any period of time he gets sooooooo bored and wants nothing to do with it. There can’t be more than maybe 5 sentences on a page before I have to turn to a new picture.
Is this normal for a preschool boy? I cdon’t care if he dances around like a bowl of jello, as long as he’s paying attention. But there are time, I feel, where a child needs to learn to sit still and to watch, or to be quiet and obey. I don’t believe in forcing him to sit still while I teach or any of that because I think that a child who is forced to do so will just space out very often and tune you out till its over. But with the 100 easy lessons, I lost him. The rhyming concept in lesson 7 did us in. And being that I had a rough day today in general, it didn’t help that it ended on a rough note and he now “hates learning”. I feel VERY discouraged right now. 🙁
It’s tough sometimes isn’t it? So does your son know his long and short vowels? I’ve used 100 EZ lessons with boys my sons. And with both I changed the program to fit them. I didn’t use the scripting. It just didn’t work for them. My first son breezed through it with no trouble. My second son has struggled more. We are on the second year of trying it and are at lesson 30. When we have a day where things are going rough and he’s having a tough time, we just put it away. I don’t say anything other than “let’s try something else today!”.
Back to the long and short vowel sounds. I just explained to my sons that when the line was above the letter that meant to do the long vowel sound. That made sense to them, so they knew what to do. Would that work for your son? When they were first learning the long and short sounds it really helped them having that line. They knew when the line was there to say the long E sound. When it wasn’t there it was a short E. It will go that way through the whole book with the vowels.
Truly though if he is getting frustrated and you are getting frustrated, just put it away and pull it out another day! It’s not worth him getting discouraged and you feeling upset to continue trying. Maybe just work on letter sounds or do some rhyming games on your own without the book.
Oh and my younger son likes to do the finger pointing himself. He doesn’t like me to do it. So I just let him. Remember to make the program work for your son!! You don’t have to follow it exactly!
Take a deep breath, try again tomorrow or the next day. You could even put it away for a week and then pull it back out again.
Carrie
Thank you for the suggestion about how to explain the e with the line over it. I didn’t think about explaining long and short sounds. My oldest did all this early learning stuff in school so this is my first time around teaching reading and though I love to read. Teaching it is a very overwhelming task for me. 🙁 So thank you for the suggestion!
Are you absolutely determined that he has to learn to read right now? If not, my suggestion is to back off the reading lessons for awhile and try again down the road.
I second waiting. It is amazing when they are ready–everything clicks. I really enjoy using Reading Made Easy. It is similar to 100 Easy Lessons but the long sounds are bold print and the short sounds are grey. I tell the children that the bold print means that the vowels is bold and says his name (usually because he has a friend in the word–another vowel), and when it’s light print (or short) it means it’s scared so it makes its scared sound. I got that tip from Mrs. Herzog.
But really, put the reading lessons down for a week or two and just practice spelling words that he loves, read lots of picture books, talk about letter sounds during the day, and then pick up the lessons again. I did this for almost a year till my boys were ready. But once they were ready, we had very few struggles.
I used 100 Easy Lessons very successfully with my son, who is now almost 6. He breezed through all the lessons with no problems. My daughter (4 1/2), on the other hand, is a different story. She made it through the first 50 lessons with few problems. She is a wiggler, so keeping her still is a challenge; and you can read some of my other posts on this forum about that very issue. I now know that she just might need to fidget in order to learn, and it seems you’ve already figured that out.
These last few lessons have been really difficult for her, and today she just shut down. She read 2 words and quit. Refused to go on. I’m trying not to put pressure on her. After all, she is only 4. So, I’ve decided that we’ll try it every day, and if every day she shuts down, we’ll just quit. I don’t want her to hate reading just because her mom is trying to push her to read. She’ll do it when she’s ready, and if that’s not for another few months, it’s ok.
One of the things I discovered when I was researching CM is that she didn’t advocate teaching letters before sounds. She wanted kids to learn their sounds before they ever learned letter names, probably to avoid the kind of confusion your son is experiencing right now. I know it’s too late, and you can’t “unteach” those letter names to him. But, both of my kids knew their letter names before sounds. I just explained from the beginning that we were going to learn what each letter sounded like, and that the letters called “vowels” make more than one sound.
I think it’s an age and a personality thing for them to have difficulty paying attention. The funny thing for me is that my son is the one who can stay completely focused, while my daughter is the one who can’t. I always thought it was supposed to be the other way around!
I haven’t taught them their letters. My son learned them on his own and there was a video my mom got them that they used to watch now and then and I guess it didn’t take much. My son WANTS to learn to read. So I figured 100 easy lessons was the best way to do it.
He did finally move past this lesson and he gets it now. So I’m glad about that. But I like the idea of bold vs. not bold for the long and short sounds better than letters with crazy symbols on them. But how on earth does any of that help in the long run? I mean if my son is reading “e” with a line over it for the long e then won’t he be confused when its no longer there? I don’t understand this whole concept.
Have you seen Alpha-Phonics? It is a very basic book, very effective, but basic. It does NOT have weird markings like 100 EZ lessons. In fact, it has no markings whatsoever.
My son is doing very well with it. It is simple and we spend 5-10 minutes per day. It may be something
Just a thought.
CG
Have you looked through the entire book? It changes around lesson 74 and stops using the pronuciation signs. It also teaches the letter names. For me, personally, the signs were not weird. I learned those signs as a child. You will find them in dictionaries and other books. They are useful to know. My older son had no problem moving to reading without them. By the time they dropped the signs he already knew those words. And I think they helped with the phonics rules somewhat, without actually giving the rule.
You will also come across later on in the book that silent vowels (letters) are small. They make their size smaller so the child recognizes that they do not pronounce them. That will also change later on in the book, so that the child doesn’t need the help.
If it is working with your child and he is enjoying it I would encourage you to continue. My older son loved that book. And he had no trouble at all transitioning from the signs and small letters! And again the signs will help him later on in schooling as he looks up words in dictionaries and other places, they are useful. Not just “weird” signs.
Thanks!!! No I haven’t gone throught eh whole book. I borrowed it from a friend, and things have been so crazy I just haven’t had the chance to sit down with it. I read all the prep stuff and I read a few lessons ahead so I’m prepared. But not the whole thing. I just know that I really have to have some patience to stay on top of him cuz he get bored or frustrated really easily. But it is working. I was wish it wasn’t “work”.
And thanks for the Alpha Phonics tip. I’ll look into that as well!
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