How do you "teach the child, not the cirriculum"?

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  • February 4, 2012 at 7:13 pm
    cotk
    Member

    I understand what this *means* but what does it look like practically speaking? 

    For instance, we did our first lesson from the Delightful Reading program.  (She’ll be 5 in March.) I did it to gauge where she was at.  She struggled somewhat.  She just didn’t seem to quite “get it”.  We started with “at” and added letters to the beginning for “bat”, etc…  Some of the words she got right away.  Others she never really “got”.  She doesn’t know the alphabet entirely, I would say about 85% of the letters.  But she understand the sounds the letters make at all.  When I ask her what sound “h” makes, she says, “horse.” 

    If this were your child, what would be your next move? 

    February 4, 2012 at 9:37 pm
    SueinMN
    Participant

    I’m not familiar with the reading program that you mentioned but I have taught all six of my dc to read plus I have helped with teaching my grandchildren in addition to taking college education classes in teaching reading and language arts.

    Basically, I would say that she is only four now. I would put the curriculum away and let her be a four year old. To me that means reading great children’s picture books, doing nature study, learning how to help around the house, establishing boundaries but not teaching them to read until they are older. Learning to read it much easier when they are older. Now is the time to develop good habits and obedience, capitalizing on the four year olds desire to be helpful.

    February 4, 2012 at 10:45 pm
    amandajhilburn
    Participant

    I would agree with Sue and say hold off on a curriculum for teaching reading right now. Work on those other letters that you know she needs to learn and read to her…a lot! 🙂

     

    When I think about the idea of “teach the child, not just the curriculum”, I think in your situation it would look like this. You own a reading curriculum that your child does not appear to be quite ready for….So, instead of pushing that child to just do these lessons because the book says to, you wait on the curriculum and teach her what she needs to know right now to prepare for the use of that curriculum later on.

    With any curriculum, with any child, at any age, teach them at their own pace and respect their needs and abilities. You may need to skip ahead because they already “get it” or if they need more time with something so that they can “get it” you slow down. You teach the child and don’t let the written plans of a curiculum provider become something like a slave driver to you.

    Well…at least this is what my opinion of this concept is anyway 🙂

    ~Amanda

    February 5, 2012 at 12:13 am
    Rachel White
    Participant

    Agree with the above. Read lots of good literature and poetry to her, put on audio books for the background and have her play with alphabet puzzles.

    February 8, 2012 at 1:33 am
    cotk
    Member

    How should I go about teaching her the sounds, though?  How do I help her understand the sound of an “h” is not “horse” but “huh”?

    February 8, 2012 at 2:20 am
    4myboys
    Participant

    I’m not an expert, but I think that if you introduce her to other h words it will eventually click — maybe cut some letters out of construction paper and let her tape them to things that start with that letter — ie “hat”, (doll) “house”, “hamper”, etc.  She will probably catch on that the items all have the beginning sound in common.  Also, if she likes to cut and paste, you might search old magazines for pictures of items that begin with that letter and glue them on a piece of construction paper.  Don’t panic.  While some kids take a little longer to start reading than others, most do not start reading at age 4.  My older son was six before he could read more than a few basic words.  Keep reading great picture books to her.   Eventually she will discover reading is both useful and enjoyable and she will want to learn to do it herself, and then you will probably be surprised at how quickly she takes off with it. 

    February 8, 2012 at 2:23 am
    amandajhilburn
    Participant

    I’m not sure how Delightful Reading suggests teaching the letter sounds, but I’ll share some things we did. Keep in mind that I was not following the CM method when I taught my children to read so I have no idea if these things would be recommended by CM or not 🙂

    For an introduction to letters and their sounds we used flash cards with the letter and a picture of something that began with that letter. We also used the LeapFrog videos. I’m pretty sure these videos are NOT CM, but they worked really well for my kiddos!

    When we go serious about reading instruction we used The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. It begins with teaching the letter sounds.

    February 9, 2012 at 4:49 am
    cotk
    Member

    Thanks, all!

     

    February 9, 2012 at 4:43 pm
    Des
    Participant

    Try the leap frog letter factory DVD, that is how my ds learned his letter sounds.  The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading has a CD that teaches the letter sounds and we used that with the program.

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