Chapter 4
4
Unlocking the Doors: The Preschool Years
Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. . . . I had no regular teacher [but] . . . the first step had been taken. Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell. The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read.
—Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself
SUBJECT: Preparation for reading, writing, and math; birth–age 5
TIME REQUIRED: Start with 10 minutes a day for each subject, gradually increasing to about 30 minutes a day by age 5
When you educate your child at home, you don’t have to draw a line between parenting and teaching. Teaching—preparing the child for the twelve formal years of classical education—begins at birth.
PRESCHOOL: BIRTH TO THREE
The best early teaching you can give your child is to immerse her in language from birth.
Reading
Turn off the television—half an hour per day is plenty for any child under five. Talk, talk, talk—adult talk, not baby talk. Talk to her while you’re walking in the park, while you’re riding in the car, while you’re fixing dinner. Tell her what you’re doing while you’re doing it. (“Now I’m going to send a fax. I put the paper in face down and punch in the telephone number of the fax machine I’m calling . . . and then the paper starts to feed through like this.” “I spilled flour on the floor. I’m going to get out the vacuum cleaner and plug it in. I think I’ll use this brush—it’s the furniture brush, but the flour’s down in the cracks, so it should work better than the floor brush.”) This sort of constant chatter lays a verbal foundation in your child’s mind. She’s learning that words are used to plan, to think, to explain; she’s figuring out how the English language organizes words into phrases, clauses, and complete sentences. We have found that children from silent families (“We never really talk much during the day,” one mother told us) struggle to read.
Read, read, read. Start reading chunky books to your baby in her crib. Give her sturdy books that she can look at alone. (A torn book or two is a small price to pay for literacy.) Read picture books, pointing at the words with your finger. Read the same books over and over; repetition builds literacy (even as it slowly drives you insane). Read longer books without pictures while she sits on your lap or plays on the floor or cuts and pastes and colors. Read books onto tapes, along with the child’s comments, so that she can listen to you read over and over again. Get an infant-proof tape recorder so that she can listen to you reading, singing, talking, telling stories, and reciting poems while she plays in her crib.
After you read to your toddler, ask her questions about the story. What did the gingerbread boy do when the old woman tried to eat him? When the dogs got to the top of the tree at the end of Go, Dog, Go, what did they find? What happened after Bananas Gorilla stole all the bananas?
As soon as your child begins to talk (which will be early if she’s this immersed in language), teach her the alphabet. Sing the alphabet song whenever you change her diaper (often). Stencil alphabet letters, both capital letters and lowercase letters, to the wall, or put up a chart. Read alphabet rhymes and alphabet books.
When she knows the names of the letters, tell her that each letter has a sound, just as each animal makes a sound—”Pigs say oink“; “Dogs say woof “; and “B says b, b, b as in baby.” Start with the sounds of the consonants (that’s everything except a, e, i, o, and u). Tell her that b is the sound at the beginning of bat, ball, and Ben; say, “T, t, tickle” and “M, m, mommy” and “C, c, cat.”
Then tell her that the vowels (a, e, i, o, u) are named A, E, I, O, and U. Sing, “Old McDonald had a farm, A, E, I, O, U.” Then teach her that each vowel has a sound, just as each animal makes a sound—“A as in at,” “E as in egg,” “I as in igloo,” “O as in octopus,” and “U as in umbrella.” These are the short sounds of the vowels, the only vowel sounds you should teach at first. All of this is prereading.
Prereading preparation works. Susan was reading on a fifth-grade level in kindergarten. Her son Christopher was checking out fourth- and fifth-grade books halfway through his first year of school at home. We’ve seen these results duplicated by other home schoolers. If you create a language rich home, limit TV and videos, and then teach systematic phonics, you will produce readers.
Writing
Very young children (under two) will pick up a pencil and imitate scribbling. Teach a child from the beginning to hold the pencil correctly. Draw lots of circles and loops in a counterclockwise direction. Most printed letters use counterclockwise circles; although many children naturally want to draw circles clockwise, this habit will make cursive handwriting difficult later on. Make snowmen, Slinkiesâ„¢, smoke from a train, car wheels, and so forth counterclockwise.
Let the child practice making letters without using a regular pencil. A young child lacks fine-motor maturity, but she can form letters and numbers by writing in rice or sand with her finger. Or, if she wants to use a writing tool, she can use chalk on a big chalkboard or a crayon or pencil on large sheets of paper. Regular-diameter short pencils are often easier for small fingers to handle than fat “preschool” pencils. Teach your three year old basic dot-to-dot skills by drawing your own dot-to-dot picture (a house, a smiley face) using four or five big dots, then guiding the child’s crayon from dot to dot so that she can see the picture emerge. Continual drawing and making counterclockwise circles will prepare the preschooler for kindergarten writing.
Math
Start to make your child “mathematically literate” in the toddler years. Just as you read to the toddler, surrounding her with language until she understood that printed words on a page carried meaning, you need to expose her to mathematical processes and language continually. Only then will she understand that mathematical symbols carry meaning.
Bring numbers into everyday life as often as possible. Start with counting: fingers, toes, eyes, and ears; toys and treasures; rocks and sticks. Play hide-and-seek, counting to five and then to ten, fifteen, or twenty together. Count by twos, fives, and tens before shouting, “Coming, ready or not!” Play spaceship in cardboard boxes, and count backward for takeoff. Read number books together. Once the child is comfortable counting, you can start working on simple math sums—usually during the K–4 and K–5 years.
General Preschool Learning
In addition to teaching your child prereading and beginning math skills, you can prepare her for kindergarten work by using June R. Oberlander’s Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready. It’s a birthtoage5 activity book that provides a new, developmentally appropriate activity for each week of life. Week 1 begins with exercising the newborn’s arms and legs; age 5, week 52, ends with learning to pack an overnight bag. In between, Oberlander (a kindergarten teacher) covers everything from playing peekaboo and learning “in” and “out” through tying shoes, memorizing telephone numbers, bouncing balls, and singing the alphabet while making a different body movement for each letter. It’s a complete preschool in one volume. You may not feel you need this resource, but by combining the prereading instruction of the Oberlander book with lots of active play, you’ll have the at-home equivalent of an excellent preschool program.
KINDERGARTEN YEARS: FOUR AND FIVE
We have mixed feelings about formal kindergarten programs for four and five year olds. A kindergarten program that combines beginning reading and writing with lots of artwork and active play can be productive. But it’s a rare five year old who’s ready to do very much paper-and-pencil work at a desk, and a six year old who hasn’t done a formal kindergarten program can easily begin first-grade work.
“I can always tell the children who’ve been to kindergarten from the ones who haven’t,” a first-grade teacher told Susan.
“Are they that much further ahead?” Susan asked.
“No,” she said, “but they already know how to stand in line.”
Kindergarten does teach five year olds to stand in line, to wait to go to the bathroom, to raise their hand when they want to ask a question, and to walk through a cafeteria without spilling their food. But if you’re teaching your child at home, these aren’t the survival skills she has to have right away.
Kindergarten for four year olds accomplishes even less. Most four year olds have microscopic attention spans, immature hand-eye coordination, and a bad case of the wiggles. And normal four year olds differ widely in their maturity levels: one might be ready to read but be completely disinterested in writing; another might enjoy drawing and handwork but show no desire to read; a third might like to play endless games of Uno but reject anything having to do with letters and words.
We feel that there’s little point in following a formal, academic K–4 or K–5 curriculum at home. Rather, the first four or five years of a child’s life should be spent in informal teaching—preparing the child for first-grade work. In about thirty minutes per day, plus informal teaching as you go about your family life, you can easily teach your child beginning reading, writing, and math concepts, all without workbooks or teacher’s manuals.
If you’re already teaching an older child at home, your four year old may beg to “do school” as well. At the end of the chapter, we’ll recommend several reading and math programs that will keep a kindergartner occupied at one end of the table while her big sister does second-grade math at the other end. But try not to think of these curricula as schoolwork, or you may find yourself pushing a reluctant preschooler to “just finish that page” when her attention span has long since expired.
Rather, you should aim to teach reading and math in the same way that you taught the child to speak, to tie her shoes, to dress, to clean up after herself—by demonstrating the basic skills yourself, practicing them for a few minutes each day, and talking about them as you go through the routines of life. (“There are four of us. How many spoons should you put on the table so that we can each have one?” “Can you get me the can that says Tomato on it? You’ll recognize the T that says t, t, tomato.”)
You can use charts, tapes, games, workbooks, and stickers if you want to. But you don’t need them.
Reading
A classical education relies heavily on the written word. As a parent-educator, your number one goal should be to have your child reading fluently when she starts first-grade work.
Here’s the good news: Reading is simple.
We’ll repeat that: Reading is simple.
One more time: Reading is simple.
Unfortunately, the First Commandment of American Education seems to be “Thou shalt be an expert before attempting to teach reading.” It isn’t true. Forget everything you’ve ever heard about decoding, phonemic awareness, and comprehension skills. If a five year old can master beginning reading, you can master it as well.1
1However, don’t be surprised if you are discouraged by some professional educators. I [Jessie] was verbally accosted twenty-five years ago when I went to a reading professor to find readers for Susan. He demanded, “What do you think you are doing, teaching your child to read yourself?” I was so intimidated that I never went back to him for help. In contrast, a first-grade teacher who was successfully teaching all her first graders to read directed me to the phonics material she was using so that I could get it for myself. Alas, the material has now been revised beyond recognition.
Reading is simple. Frederick Douglass, as well as Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, and thousands of eighteenth-century pioneer children, learned to read with the alphabet and a few good books. Douglass learned his ABC’s from an adult and obtained the rest of his reading competency skills from street urchins. I [Jessie] learned to read from a set of alphabet blocks. Between the ages of four and six, most children who have been read to since toddlerhood and are not suffering from an organic disorder can learn to read. And any reasonably literate adult (which includes anyone who can read this book) can serve as tutor for basic phonics skills.2
You should continue to immerse four and five year olds in language, just as you’ve been doing since birth. Read with them in the “real world”: billboards, store names, bumper stickers, cereal boxes in the grocery store, banners at the gas station.
Get them books on tape—not the fifteen-minute children’s tapes with all the bells and whistles designed to keep children occupied, but real books read in their entirety without sound effects. Most public libraries have shelves of books on tape in the children’s sections. Children can listen to and enjoy books that are far, far above their vocabulary level; in one year, Susan’s three year old and five year old listened to all of Kipling’s Just So Stories, the original Jungle Book, all of Edith Nesbit’s books, The Chronicles of Narnia, Barrie’s densely written Peter Pan, E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess, the unabridged Christmas Carol by Dickens. Books on tape stock a child’s mind with the sounds of thousands of words. When children start sounding out words later on, they’ll progress much more quickly if they recognize the words.
Read yourself. Turn off the TV, and read a book, do a crossword puzzle, buy the New York Times.
Keep on reading together. Start to ask slightly more complex questions about the stories. “What was Wilbur afraid of in Charlotte’s Web?” “Why was Fern’s mother worried when Fern told her that the animals were talking to her?”
By the age of four, the average child should know her alphabet and the sounds that each letter makes. Continue to work on letter names and sounds. Lowercase magnetic refrigerator letters are a good way to do this. You can give the child a d magnet and say, “D, d, d, dog”; you can say, “Mary, go get me the letter that says t, t, t,” and Mary will go over to the refrigerator and decide which letter makes that sound.
Sometime around age four or five, most children are ready to start reading. Sit down with a simple primer that teaches phonics—the sounds that letters make when they’re combined together into words. The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, by Jessie Wise, contains clear step-by-step instructions on how to teach reading from the very beginning stages, starting with letter sounds and moving systematically through blending sounds into reading real words and sentences. This primer is designed to get children—even very young children—reading quickly and confidently; handwriting and spelling can be delayed until the child has enough fine motor coordination to write without frustration. (In the earlier edition of this book, we recommended Phonics Pathways as our first choice for a beginning primer; this is still a good choice, but contains less step-by-step instruction for the parent.)
Progress systematically through the primer. Go slowly, with plenty of repetition; reread the lessons until your child is completely comfortable with the sounds and their combination into words. Do this for five minutes to start with; work up to ten or fifteen minutes per session.
At some other time during the day, sit down with the child and a “real book,” and let her read it. At the end of this chapter, you’ll find a list of books that can be read with relative ease, even by a child who’s only learned consonants and one or two vowel sounds. (The first few Bob Books and Modern Curriculum Press’s early readers use only the a vowel sound, so you can start on a “real book” right after the first few lessons!) Don’t forget that you’ve already done your drill. Give the child a good chance to sound words out, but if she gets stuck, sound it out for her and move on. If you get to a word that uses a rule she hasn’t used yet, simply tell her what the rule is and keep going.
CHILD: Ann went to the steps and went —— (Sticks on the word “down.”)
YOU: That says “down.” O and w together say “ow.” Down.
CHILD: —— down.
If you don’t know the rule yourself, tell the child the word and move on. (Look the rule up later.)
Although The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading is our first choice because it is a thorough phonics program that provides clear and explicit instruction for the parent, you can follow this process with any systematic phonics program.3
In beginning reading instruction, it is best to stay with supplementary readers that are strictly phonetic (see suggested “Beginning Readers” in the Resources at the end of this chapter). But as your child becomes more confident in his ability to sound out words, he will want to read easy books that contain “sight” words that don’t follow phonetic rules (and that he will need to recognize on “sight”). Such words used frequently in beginning story books include: are, build, busy, buy, come, do, does, done, eye, father, gone, have, love, mother, of, oh, one, there, they, to, two, was, were, where, you. Could, should, and would, although phonetic, appear in many early readers before they are taught in systematic programs, and may be treated as sight words. Make flashcards for these words and teach them a few at a time as you see them occur in your child’s books. Do not teach these in isolation! Wait until they occur in the beginning readers. Reading is best taught in the context of meaningful content. And you don’t want your beginning reader to memorize whole words as a habit, rather than sounding out the phonetic elements in each word.
Start with five minutes of drill and five minutes of reading in an easy book every day. Work up to fifteen minutes of each. Don’t ask, “Do you want to do your reading now?” (They always say no.) Plan it as matter-of-factly as you would plan toothbrushing and bedmaking. You’ll be astounded at the speed with which children begin to sound out words on their own.
The advantage of this method is that you’re not limited in what you read with the child; if you sound out words that are beyond the child’s “drill level,” together the two of you can read practically anything in the “easy reading” or “beginning reader” section of the library. And you’ll often find that your child has already absorbed a rule by the time you get to it in the primer. If you say enough times, while reading, “The e on the end makes the a say its name— that’s the difference between hat and hate,” your little reader will greet that rule when you arrive at it with a shrug and “I already knew that.”
And that’s it. Remember: Reading is simple.
Reading is simple.
Reading is simple.
Don’t you need songs, drills, exercises, workbooks, and charts? We don’t think so, for several reasons.
In the first place, lots of people who teach a four or five year old to read also have a toddler or newborn. (Susan had both when her oldest son was five.) Sorting through charts and songs and trying to follow a program with lots of aids make teaching more complicated than it needs to be. With our method, all you need is a primer and lots of books.
Second, all those reinforcements and aids create extra mental steps for the learner. If you’re teaching a child to sing the song “A is for apple, b is for bear, . . . ,” you’re teaching her to see an a, think “apple,” and then think the sound of short a. If you have a flash card with a b and a picture of a bird on it, the picture—not the letter—becomes a signal to the child to say the b sound. The child goes through an extra step in associating the sound with the letter. Instead of looking at a b and forming the b sound, the mental process becomes “B . .. bird .. . b.” This is slow, and in many cases the child stays slow because she becomes dependent on the clue. Without the clue, she has no idea how to “break” the code of the word. There’s an easier way. Just point to the a and say “A, a, a” (that’s the short a sound as in at); point to the b and say, “B, b, b.” Even two and three year olds love this game, and they learn these associations much faster than you might expect.
Third, most reinforcements—even though they may be advertised and produced for a home-education setting—were originally designed for a classroom of children. A teacher teaching a whole group of students to read can’t sit down with each one and teach her to pronounce each letter correctly whenever she sees it on the page. That’s an intensive, one-on-one process. The teacher has to resort to the second-best method: reinforcing the correct sound through secondary aids in a nonreading context. You don’t have to do that.
Fourth, you’re not teaching your four or five year old the exhaustive elements of the English language. Beginning in first grade, your child will receive a more thorough grounding in the rules of spelling, which are simply phonics rules applied to writing. (We’ll recommend resources for doing this in Chapter 5.) During the K–4 and K–5 years, your goal is simply to get the child reading as quickly and fluently as possible. A kindergartner doesn’t need to be able to list from memory all the different ways a long-e sound can be spelled; she just needs to be able to pronounce meal, field, and teeth when she sees them.
If you prefer a workbook approach and have a coordinated preschooler who doesn’t have trouble with writing skills, or if you have a younger child who’s anxious to do workbooks in imitation of an older sibling, you might consider investing in Modern Curriculum Press’s Phonics Program. This has lots of fun stuff for young learners: playing Alphabet Hopscotch, making “consonant cans,” finding hidden pictures, and so on. None of this is necessary, but you might enjoy using it. A few words of caution. This phonics program ties reading and writing together, which we think can be frustrating for the very young child and can retard reading skills. Many children are ready to read before they are ready to write. Ignore the writing sections if you don’t think your child is ready to do them. It’s probably best used as an activity supplement to The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading. Modern Curriculum Press’s kindergarten-level book (Level K) seems more appropriate for home-taught three and early four year olds; Level A, the first-grade book, can be done at home in kindergarten. You don’t need to buy the expensive teacher’s manuals, which are heavy on classroom supplements and suggestions for teaching these skills to children for whom English is a second language. Another supplementary workbook program used successfully by many parents is the Explode the Code series, published by Educators Publishing Service. These books offer activities and writing exercises to go along with systemic phonics learning. Again, don’t tie these exercises to the child’s phonics learning if he’s not yet ready to do pencil work.
What if my child isn’t ready to read? If you’ve read to your preschooler since she could stare at a page, you can start this process at age four and take a couple of years to go through it. Or you can start at age five and do it in less time. Second and third children, who’ve watched older brothers and sisters learn to read, are likely to want to start sooner. If your four year old asks you for a reading lesson, oblige her. I [Jessie] taught Susan to read at three because every time I sat down with her five-year-old brother to do a phonics lesson, she wanted to be included.
Reading readiness (like everything else in this chapter) isn’t complicated. A child is ready to learn to read when she collects her stuffed animals and a picture book and tells them a story; or when she picks up a book, sits on the sofa, and pretends she’s reading to you; or when she constantly asks you, “What does this say?” All of these activities show that she understands that printed words carry a message.
Most five year olds are capable of learning to read, which doesn’t mean that they’ll want to do it. A child who squirms, complains, and protests every time you produce the primer isn’t demonstrating “reading unreadiness.” She’s simply being five. It’s a rare child who wants to do something unfamiliar that involves work; as a matter of fact, we’ve yet to meet a five year old who could be convinced to set her eyes on long-range goals.4 If the child doesn’t want to learn to read, tell her that you’re going to do five minutes per day anyway.
The beginning stage, when you’re teaching the child to sound out three-letter words for the first time, is the most difficult. Persist until you can start the child on the Bob Books, the Flyleaf Books to Remember, or the first Modern Curriculum Press readers (see the list of resources at the end of this chapter). Most children will swell up with pride over being able to read a “whole book all alone.” Once they’ve started putting sentences together, they’ll tell you they don’t need to do the drill anymore; they just want to read. That’s a good sign, but insist on the ten minutes of drill every day until you’ve covered all the pages in The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.
But use common sense. If you’ve started on three-letter words, doing a faithful ten minutes per day for three or four weeks, and the child shows no comprehension, she hasn’t made the connection between print and sounds yet. Drop it for a month or two, and then come back to it.
Writing
Many of the phonics programs we examined insist that you combine writing with reading. In other words, teach the child the consonants and the sound of a, but don’t go on to the next step until the child is able both to read and write sat, cat, fat, bat.
We think this tends to frustrate very young readers (see page 36). Remember, you want the child to read quickly, easily, and early. Many children are ready to read long before they have the muscular coordination to write. Why delay reading until the muscles of the hand and eye catch up?
So do your reading and writing drills separately during your child’s fourth and fifth years. When she is able to hold the pencil comfortably and has some control over it, then move on to formal writing instruction. Get her a beginning writing workbook that has large-ruled lines and patterns for forming each letter (see pages 47–48 for ordering information). Teach only one letter (always do a capital and small letter together) or one number at a time until you’ve gone through the entire alphabet and the numbers 1 through 100. You can either follow the suggested workbook sequence or teach the letters in the order presented in The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading. The writing workbooks have arrows and numbers to show the exact way that letters should be written: the circle for a small a is always drawn counterclockwise; the straight edge of a capital D is always drawn first, with the curve of the letter drawn second. This is important! Make sure you teach the child to write the letter properly, and for the first few months supervise her carefully so that she doesn’t fall into bad habits.
The best resources for teaching writing are from Zaner-Bloser, which publishes colorful learn-to-write workbooks using the “continuous-stroke alphabet.” In traditional ball-and-stick writing, the student continually lifts her hand—if she writes a small d, for example, she draws a circle, picks up her pencil, and then connects a line to the circle. In the continuous-stroke alphabet, the letter is written in one motion. This simplifies writing and makes for an easier transition into cursive. Start with the kindergarten-level book, and let the child progress forward at her own rate. The books don’t give a lot of practice space, so you’ll want to order some extra writing paper (see the ordering information on page 48).
An alternative for children who are very challenged in the area of muscular coordination is the Handwriting Without Tears series. This program emphasizes using short pencils of regular diameter rather than fat preschool pencils, since the small pencils are easier for children to manipulate. The program also has the child do manipulative work before he actually writes. When he does begin to copy letters, instead of writing a whole line of letters (as most penmanship books suggest), he writes fewer letters at a time but concentrates on writing them as perfectly as possible. Each lesson involves fifteen minutes of penmanship time: ten minutes of instruction and five minutes of carefully supervised practice. The student does less work than in traditional penmanship books, but what he does is as perfect as he can make it. The workbooks have many model letters per line, so the child doesn’t write a line of one letter, consistently getting worse and worse as he goes (children tend to copy the last letter they made, rather than looking back at the correct model). Although this program offers many excellent insights for teaching writing, it isn’t our first recommendation because the script itself is not as attractive as the Zaner-Bloser script; the focus is on legibility rather than beauty. However, a child who is struggling will benefit greatly from this program.
When you’ve worked through the entire alphabet, let the child begin to copy words that you write out for her—family names are a good place to start. Eventually, ask her to copy very short sentences: “I love you.” “Ben is smart!” “Do you like to write?” In this way, the five year old not only practices writing, but begins to learn the conventions of written language: capitals for names and the beginnings of sentences, spaces between words, periods and exclamation points. In first and second grades, you’ll progress to dictation, where she will write without a model in front of her. But for now, write out the sentences for her to copy, and let her refer to your models as often as needed. Ten minutes per day, three to five times per week, is sufficient. Frequency and consistency bring quicker results than prolonged sessions.
A word about cursive writing. A great debate is on about when to introduce cursive penmanship. Some educators say that children should begin with cursive and skip manuscript printing; others recommend beginning cursive anywhere between first and fourth grade. We have always chosen to teach printing until the child is writing quickly and well, and then begin cursive penmanship, usually in the middle of second grade. This seems easier for most children. Handwriting Without Tears begins cursive work in third grade, which is also acceptable.
Math
Now that the child can count, continue to do “daily” math by adding and subtracting in the context of everyday family life. Setting the table is a great math exercise: ask your child to figure out how many plates, knives, forks, and spoons are necessary. Add and subtract in the grocery store (“Look, Mike. I’m picking up four tomatoes and then one more tomato—that makes five!”). Cook together—recipes are full of fractions and measures. When you cut a sandwich in half or quarters, say, “Look, I cut this in half!” or “I cut this into fourths!”
Play games that use numbers. Unoâ„¢ is a classic—it teaches both number and color matching. Simple card games such as Battle and Go Fish require children to remember which numbers are higher and which are lower.
Do lots of addition and subtraction with manipulatives (beans, buttons, pencils, chocolate chips). Practice counting to one hundred—by twos, fives, and tens. Learn about money, tell time, and name geometric figures—circles, squares, triangles, rectangles. Learn to write the numbers (but don’t expect the written numbers to mean very much to the child at this point).
Your public library should have a colorful selection of kindergarten-level math books—easy problems worked out with photographed objects. Get a book every week, and read through it with your child.
If you do this, your child will be ready for first-grade math. Susan’s oldest had no difficulty with first-grade Saxon math (see Chapter 6), even though we had never done a formal kindergarten math program. As in reading, though, younger children may enjoy having a math program to work on along with an older brother or sister; many kindergarten math programs are fun and full of manipulatives. Again, think of a kindergarten math program as a game, not as an academic pursuit. If the child gets tired after five or ten minutes, don’t force her to finish the lesson.
General Kindergarten Learning
If you’d like to do kindergarten science projects with your preschooler, two elementary science books will provide you with plenty of fun science activities: Mudpies to Magnets, by Robert A. Williams, and Everybody Has a Body, by Robert Rockwell. Both books offer clear instructions and experiments that use common household items. You can supplement beginning reading, writing, and math by doing a science experiment once or twice a week; more formal science study isn’t necessary at this stage.
For publisher and catalog addresses, telephone numbers, and other information, see Sources (pages 749–776). Where noted, resources are listed in chronological order (the order you’ll want to use them in). Books in series are listed together.
General Learning
Oberlander, June R. Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready. 4th ed. Longwood, Fla.: Xulon Press, 2002. $22.99. Order from Rainbow Resource Center or from Amazon.com.
Reading Skills
Explode the Code. Cambridge, Mass.: Educators Publishing Service, 2003. Order from EPS. Each workbook drills a particular phonetic sound. The “1/2″ books provide additional practice. The student books are $7.60 each. If you find an answer key is necessary, they are available for each book and are priced at $7.55.
Book 1. Consonants, short vowels.
Book 1 1/2
Book 2. Blends
Book 2 1/2
Book 3 1/2.
Book 4. Compound words, common endings, syllables.
Book 4 1/2
Book 5. Word families, three-letter blends.
Book 5 1/2.
Book 6. Vowels plus r, diphthongs.
Book 6 1/2.
Book 7. Soft c and g, silent consonants, ph.
Book 8. Suffixes and irregular endings.
Modern Curriculum Press Plaid Phonics Program. Published by Modern Curriculum Press, a division of Pearson Learning. Lebanon, Ind.: Pearson Learning, 2003.
Order from Modern Curriculum Press. The student editions range from $7.95 to $11.95; the teacher’s resource guides, which you don’t really need (they contain classroom information), are $53.95 each. MCP also offers Levels D, E, and F, but these books shift from phonics instruction to word study. Since they overlap substantially with the spelling and writing program you’ll be following in first and second grade, there’s no need to follow the program through to its end. If you’re starting with an older child, start with Level B.
Level K, Student Edition. For ages 3–4.
Level A, Student Edition. For ages 4–5.
Level B, Student Edition. For ages 5–6.
Level C, Student Edition. For ages 6–7.
Wise, Jessie. The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading. Charles City, Va.: Peace Hill Press, 2004. $29.95. Order from Peace Hill Press.
Beginning Readers
Books to Remember series. Lyme, N.H.: Flyleaf Publishing. $7.95. Order from Flyleaf Publishing or check your local library. These decodable readers progress from short vowels up through diphthongs and more difficult words. The program flyer gives an exact description of the skills required to read each book (they are listed in increasing order of difficulty below).
Reading Series One, by Laura Appleton-Smith, 1999:
The Sunset Pond.
Jen’s Best Gift Ever.
Meg and Jim’s Sled Trip.
Lin-Lin and the Gulls.
Just a Box.
It Is Halloween.
Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall.
My Vivid Town.
Reading Series Two, by Laura Appleton-Smith, 2001:
Frank the Fish Gets His Wish.
Marvin’s Trip to Mars.
Mr. Sanchez and the Kick Ball Champ.
The Twins THIS and THAT.
A Sled Dog Morning.
Mister Mole’s Stove.
My Summertime Camping Trip.
Tracking With Uncle Joe.
The Case of Jake’s Escape.
Queen Bee Needs to Be Free.
Reading Series Three, by Laura Appleton-Smith, 2001:
Shep the Sheep of Caladeen.
Bon-Bon the Downtown Cow.
Pearl Learns a Lesson.
Snail Hits the Trial.
Oh, My! It Must Be the Sky!
Little Books 1–10. Pensacola, Fla.: A Beka Book, 1995. $7.00. Order from A Beka Book. Ten small storybooks that begin with only short vowel words and progress through blends, words, and simple sentences. Includes pages to color.
Little Owl Books. Pensacola, Fla.: A Beka Book, 1990. $7.00. Order from A Beka Book. A set of eight full-color booklets, phonetically progressing from three-letter words to words with long vowel sounds.
Maslen, Bobby Lyn. Bob Books series. Illus. John R. Maslen. New York:
Scholastic, 2006. $16.99 for each boxed set. The sets contain eight small paperbacks inside each box. These are the first books your child will be able to read alone; children love them because they can start on the Bob Books after only a few weeks of phonics lessons. The experience of reading an entire book independently right at the beginning of the learning process provides young readers with immense encouragement. Highly recommended. Most libraries carry them; but the books are in high demand, and you may have trouble getting them (and keeping them for more than a couple of weeks). If you plan to teach more than one child how to read, they’re worth buying because older children can help younger siblings sound them out. Order from a bookstore, from Rainbow Resource Center, or directly from Scholastic.
Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers.
Bob Books, Set 2: Advancing Beginners.
Bob Books, Set 3: Word Families.
Bob Books, Set 4: Compound Words.
Bob Books, Set 5: Long Vowels.
Modern Curriculum Press Phonics Practice Readers. Published by Modern Curriculum Press, a division of Pearson Learning. Lebanon, Ind.: Pearson Learning, n.d.
Order from Modern Curriculum Press. Sets of beginning readers, with
each book designed to drill one particular rule. The books are marked
with the rule they are meant to reinforce. (The first two books in each
series, for example, are “short a” books and use only short-a words—
“Max the cat sat.” This allows you to match the books with the appropriate lessons in The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.) Each
series contains two books each for short a, i, u, o, and e; two books each
for five different types of consonant blend; and two books each for the
sounds th, wh, sh, ch, and ng/ck (these are called “digraphs). If cost is a
problem, consider splitting the bill with a friend or neighbor. Each set
of ten different books is $26.50.
Series A.
Set 1: Short Vowels.
Set 2: Long Vowels.
Set 3: Blends.
Set 4: Digraphs. Series B. The same skills taught in Series A, but different stories. Set 1: Short Vowels. Set 2: Long Vowels. Set 3: Blends. Set 4: Digraphs. Series C. The same skills taught in Series A and B, but different stories.
Set 1: Short Vowels.
Set 2: Long Vowels.
Set 3: Blends.
Set 4: Digraphs.
Beginning Story Books: “Easy Readers”
The “Easy Reader” category is confusing because most of these books are geared to whole language teaching and not to phonetic instruction. They have just a few words on the page, but a beginning reader cannot read some of these books unless he memorizes whole words. A number of companies publish these interesting books. If there are many sight words or words the child has not yet encountered in his phonics instruction, I would either read these books to the child, pointing to the pictures, or wait until the child has been taught to read phonetically.
The beginning readers sections of libraries and bookstores include many more titles than those listed below. Also look for the Little Bear series by Elsie Minarik; anything by Arnold Lobel (Owl at Home, the Frog and Toad books); the Henry and Mudge books by Cynthia Rylant; and the Dial EasytoRead books. A particular favorite of ours is “Stand Back,” Said the Elephant, “I’m Going to Sneeze,” by Patricia Thomas, illustrated by Wallace Tripp (New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1990). The rhyming story contains many vowel combination’s that look different but sound the same (for example, bear, fair, declare all in a row).
The I Can Read Book series. New York: HarperTrophy.
Progress through Level 1, Level 2, etc. Titles include Oliver by Syd Hoff,
Detective Dinosaur by James Skofield, and many others.
The Step Into Reading series. New York: Random House.
Titles include I Like Bugs by Margaret Wise Brown, Hot Dog by Molly
Coxe, and many others.
Eastman, P. D. Go, Dog, Go! New York: Random House, 1961.
Geisel, Theodore Seuss (Dr. Seuss). Dr. Seuss’s A.B.C. New York: Random House, 1996.
———. The Foot Book. New York: Random House, 1988.
———. Hop On Pop. New York: Random House, 1963.
———. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. New York: Random House, 1981.
———. There’s a Wocket in my Pocket. New York: Random House, 1974.
The Hello Reader series. New York: Scholastic.
Progress through Level 1, Level 2, etc. Titles include One Snowy Day by
Jeffrey Scherer, Whales and Dolphins by Peter Roop, Connie Roop, and
Carol Schwartz, and many others.
The I Can Read It All By Myself Beginner Books series. New York: Random
House. Titles include Snow by P. D. Eastman, A Fish Out of Water by Helen Palmer, and many others.
Books on Tape
Many books are worth listening to. Here are a few favorites. Check these out of your local library, and listen with your preschooler or kindergartner. Many different versions of these classics have been made. Make sure you look for tapes marked “unabridged”; abridged versions often aren’t marked at all.
Barrie, J. M. Peter Pan.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland.
———. Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.
Kipling, Rudyard. The Jungle Books, I and II.
———. Just So Stories.
Lawson, Robert. Rabbit Hill.
Lewis, C. S. The Chronicles of Narnia.
McDonald, George. The Princess and Curdie.
Nesbit, Edith. The Complete Book of Dragons.
———. The Railway Children.
White, E. B. Charlotte’s Web.
———. Stuart Little.
———. The Trumpet of the Swan.
Look for versions read by E. B. White himself, which are very pleasant listening. Books on tape tend to be expensive, but if you’re interested in buying them (or simply finding out what’s on tape) you can call the following companies for catalogs or visit them online. All produce unabridged versions:
Blackstone Audio Books, 8007292665, blackstoneaudio.com.
Blackstone has an extensive catalog and a marvelous rental program; they ship the tapes in resealable, prepared-for-return boxes.
Books in Motion, 8007523199, booksinmotion.com.
Recorded Books Productions, Inc., 8006381304, recordedbooks.com.
Audiobooks in MP3 format can be purchased and downloaded from Blackstone Audio Books (blackstoneaudio.com), Books in Motion (books inmotion.com), Audible (audible.com, now partnered with Amazon.com), Audiobooks Alive (audiobooksalive.com), and Simply Audiobooks (simplyaudiobooks.com). This gives you the option to burn the files onto your own CDs and replace them when they get scratched. Although some MP3s are coded so that you can only burn one copy, a phone call to customer service will often get you permission to make more than one CD (you just need to explain that you’re a home educator making a replacement for a destroyed disk).
Read-Aloud Books
We have too many favorites to list here. But a good guide to reading aloud is The Read-Aloud Handbook, 6th ed., by Jim Trelease (New York: Penguin Books, 2006). You can check it out of the library, or any bookstore can order it for you.
Writing
Olsen, Jan Z. Handwriting Without Tears program. Cabin John, Md.:
Handwriting Without Tears. Order from Handwriting Without Tears. The books below are listed in progressive order.
Letters and Numbers for Me (K). $6.35.
Handwriting Without Tears Teacher’s Guide. $6.35. Provides an overview
of the program and tips on teaching. My Printing Book (First grade). $6.35. 1st Grade Printing Teacher’s Guide. $6.35. Printing Power (Second grade). $6.35. 2nd Grade Printing Teacher’s Guide. $6.35. Double Line Notebook Paper. Designed specifically to go along with
the skills taught in this program.
Wide (K–1). 100 sheets. $2.95.
Wide (K–1). 500 sheets. $10.00.
Regular (2–3). 100 sheets. $2.95.
Regular (2–3). 500 sheets. $10.00.
Zaner-Bloser Handwriting series. Columbus, Ohio: Zaner-Bloser, 2008. Order from Zaner-Bloser. This is the Zaner-Bloser continuous-stroke alphabet method. Since the child doesn’t have to lift her hand as she forms the letters, the transition into cursive is simpler. Also, some capital letters in the cursive alphabet have been simplified so that they look more like the printed versions. Start with K Student Book and progress forward. The manuscript lines become smaller with each book. The teacher editions are not necessary.
Handwriting with Continuous-Stroke Alphabet series. $10.69 each.
Grade K Student Book.
Grade 1 Student Book.
Zaner-Bloser Handwriting Paper. $8.99 per ream. Order these packs of writing paper for extra handwriting practice from Zaner-Bloser. One ream per year is plenty. The ruled lines on these sheets narrow each year. A child who is having difficulty with handwriting will sometimes improve if you move to a paper with narrower lines.
Grade K paper (11â„8″ wide).
Grade 1 paper (5â„8″ wide).
Grade 2 paper (1â„2″ wide).
Math
Wooden Pattern Blocks. Rowley, Mass.: Didax Educational Resources. $22.95. Order from Rainbow Resource Center or from Didax. One of the most useful preschool manipulative sets; each 250piece set of 1cmthick blocks contains 25 yellow hexagons, 25 orange squares, 50 green triangles, 50 red trapezoids, 50 blue parallelograms, and 50 tan rhombuses. Stack them, count them, make pictures with them, wallow in them.
Check your local library or bookstore for these math story books and make them part of your reading routine:
Anno, Mitsumasa. Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar. New York: Paper Star, 1999.
Axelrod, Amy. Pigs Will Be Pigs: Fun with Math & Money. New York: Aladdin,
1997.
Burns, Marilyn. Greedy Triangle. New York: Scholastic, 2008.
———. Spaghetti and Meatballs for All: A Mathematical Story. New York:
Scholastic, 2008.
Jonas, Ann. Splash! New York: Mulberry Books, 1997.
MacKain, Bonnie. One Hundred Hungry Ants. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1999.
Miranda, Anne. Monster Math. New York: Harcourt, 2002.
Mogard, Sue. Gobble Up Math: Fun Activities to Complete and Eat for Kids in
Grades K–3. Huntington Beach, Calif.: Learning Works, 1994.
Murphy, Stuart J. Divide and Ride. New York: HarperTrophy, 1997.
Myllar, Rolf. How Big Is a Foot? New York: Yearling, 1991.
Neuschwander, Cindy. Sir Cumference and the First Round Table: A Math
Adventure. Watertown, Mass.: Charlesbridge Publishing, 2002. Also look
for Sir Cumference’s four additional adventures.
Schwartz, David M. How Much Is a Million? New York: 20th Anniversary
Edition. HarperTrophy, 2004.
Scieska, Jon, and Lane Smith. Math Curse. New York: Viking Children’s
Books, 2007.
Tang, Greg. Math for All Seasons. New York: Scholastic, 2005.
Science
Rockwell, Robert E., et al. Everybody Has a Body: Science from Head to Toe. Mt. Ranier, Md.: Gryphon House, 1992.
Williams, Robert A. Mudpies to Magnets. Mt. Ranier, Md.: Gryphon House, 1987.
William, Robert A. More Mudpies to Magnets. Mt. Ranier, Md.: Gryphon House, 1990.
1However, don’t be surprised if you are discouraged by some professional educators. I [Jessie] was verbally accosted twenty five years ago when I went to a reading professor to find readers for Susan. He demanded, “What do you think you are doing, teaching your child to read yourself?” I was so intimidated that I never went back to him for help. In contrast, a first grade teacher who was successfully teaching all her first graders to read directed me to the phonics material she was using so that I could get it for myself. Alas, the material has now been revised beyond recognition.
2Many parents have been told by a reading teacher that phonics will somehow “ruin” their child’s reading skills. See pages 221–225 for a brief discussion of the phonics–whole language debate.
3Reading Reflex, by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness (New York: Fireside, 1999), is an excellent source for remedial reading for older students; see page 342 in Chapter 17.
4We are not impressed by “child-led” education (waiting until the child brings you a book and begs for a reading lesson) for the same reasons that we don’t let our elementary-school children eat exactly what they want: young children do not realize that spinach is not only better for them than Twinkies, but actually more satisfying in the long run. A typical learning-to-read-at-home dialogue sounds like this:
PARENT: Don’t you want to learn to read? If you work on these lists of rules for a year, you can read books to yourself!
CHILD: (Eyeing twenty pages of rules and reasoning that the parent reads books to her anytime she
wants anyway.) I don’t like it. PARENT : But you haven’t even tried yet. CHILD: But I don’t like it anyway.
This exchange ought to sound familiar to anyone who’s served a child a new food:
PARENT: These are fresh strawberries. You’ll love them.
CHILD: (Eyeing the strawberries.) I don’t like them.
PARENT: But you’ve never eaten a strawberry.
CHILD: I don’t like them anyway.
The reasonable response is: Eat one every time I serve them, and you’ll learn to like them. Reading is no different.
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