Well Thomas read the first book in the Biscuit Phonics Fun Box Set tonight!
I loved it! It was so fun! He would finish a sentence and I would say, "give me 5!" And he would and we'd giggle!
The funny thing is, the set was a Santa gift for Grace! But, he had done so well last night with a Star Wars, Step Into Reading- Level 1 book, that I knew if he worked on one that was focused on Phonics (the Step Into Reading aren't really), that he would do great.
He read "This is Biscuit" and "Biscuit and the Cat." The second with quite a bit more help. :-)
His hardest words were: "Little, lots, of." He kept trying to say "love" or "likes" with "lots." And he keeps sounding "of" out as "t-something-or-another."
The smart thing is, and I've seen this on several sets of the Phonics Books, there is a page in the beginning that shows each set of words in the book. The first set is the phonics words they are working on (short a), so: "ran can hat sat." Then the second set is sight words: "this a on is." Finally, they have a set of "Fun Biscuit Words" (Scooby Doo has "silly words" I think) that they will see here: "Woof! Biscuit Yellow." This last set include daily words, but not usually ones they would see every day. (Thomas was proud to point at Yellow before I could and read that one. They work on colors and numbers at school. :-) )
One cool element about this layout, is that you've had a chance to read aloud to them all of the main words (sometimes all of the words) they are about to see, in no order at all, but still, they do get to hear the word and see it together. Then, a few minutes later when they are trying to sound out the word, they will think back and put the pieces together in their mind. Or, like with the word Biscuit, they are ready to holler out "Biscuit!" as soon as they see it written on every page. Thomas did this with "Woof!" and "friend".
It seems to me that the major stumbling block he is having is sight-recognition of letters. I know that sounds odd, that he is sitting there reading all but about 6 words out of a (30-25 words total maybe) book, and I'm worried he doesn't recognize letters. But, if you saw what he struggles with, you'd see what I mean.
He will stare at "girl" and fidget, and look all around the room, and look at the picture trying to guess a word that fits in the sentence he has just read....etc. Then I'll say, "G-I-R-L," and he blurts out "Girl!" Now, I'm not talking about sounding it out, I just spell it, and he pauses, and says the word. He does that a lot actually. I wonder if where they practice saying the spellings of words at school.... Ex: (Tune of Frere Jacques) "P-I-N-K, P-I-N-K, That spells Pink! That Spells Pink!" .... if he is memorizing some word spellings. Then when I spell it out, he thinks of it. Not sure really. I do know that it's become noticeable to me.
Anyway, another little issue, which I'm assuming will clear up on its own, is mixing "b" and "d" up. But, before we call in the dyslexia people, they do look a lot alike.... so we'll watch and wait.
We've been reading one book a night that he reads, and then one (or two maybe) that I read. Not including the one or two I read to Grace in her room, which he sometimes listens in on.
He noticed recently that several kids in his room already know how to read. He told me, "I don't know how to read." He said it with such certainty and finality, that I talked to Mom and we agreed that even if it was just one little book a day, it was worth trying.
Here we are 4 books later, and he read one almost totally by himself. Even if he just gets a tiny boost of confidence when he hears his classmates blurting out sentences that are written on the wall, it will be worth it!
I wish you could have seen him proudly reading that little book to his Dad! :-)
Sam and I kept shooting each other looks back and forth while he was reading it like, "Can you believe this!" :-)
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