Lets read.

Lets read.

I am not a fan of phonics being the main system for teaching reading - which it is at the school the boys attend - and although only in nursery they have started to learn letters and are sounding out words.  He is really enjoying it and has been asking to read words that he sees.  A couple of weeks ago I dug out a tree poster we had made when teaching the oldest son to read and quickly printed out comon words on dinosaurs.  When interest arises we have brought out 3 or 4 new words and played some games to encourage him to read/memorise these words.
Today was one of those days and today he chose "me", "on" and "dog".
(dog and am don't seem to be on poster guessing they were still on table!)
When we use the words they are removed from the tree and played with.  He likes to choose the games now that he has played a few times  his favourite is running up to the ballon with the correct word and popping it before running back with the word.  He also likes bashing the words with a squidgy hammer from one of his games. To start with we have a few in a tub and he chooses which he wants as I read them out (I put about 10 in a box that should make sentences but if they don't we make up any words we need.)
At nursery they sing "I am going on an adventure" so with "I" "am" and "going" already on the board "on" was added, "me" for look at "me" and "dog" to add to "cat" which we already have.
Other games we use are hiding the words under colourful bowls and as he turns the bowl over he has to say the word - or I lift the bowl up and he has to shout the word before the bowl eats his fingers!
I will add some more of the games we use as we go.
The sentences he makes at the moment all start with I so I would definately recommend starting there.  We have "I look up" "I see a cat" "I am big" "I look at a cat" "I look at me" - this game obviously used a mirror!! "We look at a cat" "I am going to look at a cat" and then today dog replaced cat and was added to cat "I look at a cat and dog".


We also sound out the words phoics style but he doesn't know the sounds like "oo" etc