Almost Unschooling Grama

Try this fun, fast-paced reading game to learn sight words. Put sight words on wide craft sticks. Have some sticks that say "Oh Snap". Put them in a cup and set a 5-minute timer. Each player takes turns pulling out sticks and reading them. If they pull an "Oh Snap" they must put all their sticks back. The person with the most sticks at the end of 5 minutes wins!

"Read aloud to your children and they will become great readers." Have you heard this message? It's everywhere. Schools, libraries, even homeschool blogs proclaim this optimistic message from the rooftops! It sounds so simple, such a no-brainer, obviously true ... But is it? "Of course, it is!" They all shout. "All the studies show that children who are read to have a much greater chance of becoming good adult readers." True, but a link does not necessarily indicate the cause. For instance: There is a very strong correlation between retail ice cream sales and summer murder rates. Given this information, we should all probably steer clear of ice cream. 😉 Let's look a little deeper. I would really like to know more about the parents of the children that were studied. What about their socio-economic backgrounds? What kinds of jobs did they hold? What about their education levels? Were they good readers themselves? I asked my siblings...

It’s not all that hard to teach your child to read. Dick and Jane basic readers can be fun, but they really aren’t needed. Throughout most of American history, the only book most children ever had access to was a Bible. And they learned to read. Our society makes learning to read hard because we push our kids to read before they are ready. To be able to read well, there is a nerve between the eye and the brain that needs to mature. If it isn’t developed enough, teaching a child to read is very difficult and very frustrating. The normal time for this nerve to develop is between the ages of 4 and 12. If a child is potty trained at 18 months we are happy, but if she doesn’t get it down until she is 3 or 4, it’s not really a big deal. We recognize that each child develops differently in this area and no one can tell the difference when they are 30. We actually handicap many of our kids by insisting that they read before they are ready. Read to your child every day. Don’t get all upt...

Several years ago, I looked into buying “Hooked on Phonics”, but letting go of two hundred plus bucks was way more than I was comfortable with. I decided to come up with a game myself and by involving the kids in the creation of the game, they catch on just that much easier. Instructions for creating the game: Use a phonics website to find a list of letters and sounds. Start with the letters from your child’s name. This is a great way to get them interested. If your child has letters that combine to make another sound like th, or, eigh, go ahead and use them, but don’t separate them. Cut index cards in half, width-wise. Print “THAT SAYS” on one side of each card. On the other side put one of the letters at the top of two cards. Leave a space for a picture and put a word that starts with that sound at the bottom. Make sure the word is something that your child can draw or take a picture of. Then, have your child draw that picture in the middle of the cards. You can also f...