Need help with preschool lessons…

Personally, I wouldn’t worry about the sound-letter recognition at such a young age. It’s possible your child is learning the sounds at the perfect pace but isn’t performing them for you in the way you’d like. He’s only three, and I’d let him be for awhile longer. Continue reading, and he will catch on. Three is still very young and you want to instill the love of words, not make it a chore to learn them.

All the best,

Esby

I agree in the fact of not pushing them past when they are ready. My oldest son however did start reading at an early 3. He was asking me constantly to teach him what everything said and rather than continue to put him off I complied. He never seemed frustrated and was thrilled to be able to read his own books. That being said, what we have is the Leap Frog refrigerator thing with the letter magnets, it sings a little song about each letter sound. We also had the Leap Frog Letter Factory video. I am not a huge fan of battery/noisy toys or television so this seemed to go against everything I stood for BUT he learned his letter sounds very gently and excitedly. After he had those down and I noticed him trying to sound out words on his own I would help him when he asked, never pushing him and backing off if he ever seemed frustrated (but he never really did). He pretty much took the reins on the whole reading thing and caught on very easily. I don’t want to put down what everyone else said about waiting, I don’t see it as a huge priority at 3 – I have twin 2 yr olds that don’t even speak yet, so I doubt they will move at the same pace as he did. But it was a very fun thing for the both of us and he loves being able to read on his own and to his brothers.

As far as a devotional – I would ditto the Catherine Vos Child’s Story Bible. We have read through it a couple of times and love it – to me it also gives a good foundation for history to be able to read chronologically. And when we read through the real bible it helps my older son (and myself admittedly) understand what is going on better.

Ruth Beechick’s set of booklets under the title “The Three R’s” has some great ideas for beginning reading/phonics instruction. At that young age simple games are the best way to ensure learning without boredom. My ds was very much like that and the more I pushed him to learn, the less enthusiastic he became. I decided to back way off, read fantastic books out loud with him, and followed the words on the page with my finger. Sometimes we would play phonics games using sidewalk chalk on the walkway and he had to hop to the letters that made the sounds I said. By the time he was 5 he was ready to blast off with reading all on his own. It was a control issue for me, after all, he was my firstborn! I’m glad I just sat back, had fun and gave help when it was needed, it made the entire process much more natural and enjoyable for us all! I hope you experience a similar joy 😀

Rachel