My mom’s fail proof plan she used homeschooling her 9 children.  One child had to take 3 years or so on the first step, but with patience turned out a brilliant child.   Good luck!

STEP 1: Child learns the alphabet sounds and next the alphabet letter names.  We sing and learn the “ah, buh, cuh duh’s” before the ABC’s.  Learn the sound of each letter through which ever resources you choose, such as Brightly Beaming Resources Letter of the Week, or a thousand other helpful resources.  For your visual learners, kinesthetic learners who have a harder time learning, try   The See Hear Do Company.  Their flip chart is 13 dollars and my 2 year old knows the letters I have taught because it is so much fun!

STEP 2: Child learns to listen for the SOUNDS VERBALLY that make up words, in 4 Parts.  This step is easy, you can do it with your child while waiting in the office, driving in the car, and other living moments.  As they progress you move to the next step.

Part 1:  Learning Beginning Sounds

Part 2: Learning Ending Sounds

Part 3: Learning Middle Sounds.

Process:  Simply play the “Eye Spy” game with your child to accomplish this step.  Say “I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the sound ‘h’ and its on my head!!!”  Give big clues so that this game is very positive for the child. Make a big deal of it when they guess correctly.  When they have mastered beginning sounds, move to the ending and finally the hardest, middle sounds.

Part 4:  Putting sounds together.

Now play the Eye Spy game, but this time say I am going to see if you can guess what I am thinking about without my even telling you the word!  Say:  I spy a b-a-g (Saying the first, last and middle sounds).  Get very excited when the child can put together the sounds.

STEP 3: Reading words.

When you know your child is both familiar with the sound of each letter, and can discern the beginning middle, and end of each word, and can put those sounds together, they are ready to read!~~~  Tell them that today they are going to learn how to read!~!~

This involves a little more preparation.  Either gather small toys that are phonetic such as man, bus, cup, etc.  Or glue magazine phonetic pictures onto index cards.

With a moveable letter set, tell the child that without saying anything, they are going to be able to guess what word that you are thinking.  Set out three items such as a dog, a cat, and a man.  Now, slowly set out the three letters and child will read the letters and tell you which item you are thinking of.  Tell them they READ!!!   Make a huge deal out of this, it should be delightful and fun.  Make sure to stop right before they are tired so they really anticipate this activity the next time you do it.

STEP 4: Becoming an affluent reader

~Tricky words:  The way my mom teaches the word the is through a dialog like this: ” This is a Wiley word” (Wiley Coyote) Or a Trickster Word.  Would you say that you want to go to t’ /h/e/ (say each sound) store??? NO!  Silly, its THE store!”

Go through a few examples.  Use this method for teaching tricky words.

~Continue to read books to your children, especially books which repeat themselves a lot such as Dr. Seuss.  Another example of a book that repeats phrases is The Chick and the Duckling By Mirra Ginsburg.

~Choose a reader set where each book builds off each-other.  Make a big deal of it when they are ready for a new book.  Get excited also when hearing the old books that they are still practicing and be interested in the stories. Bob Books are done very well for this purpose.

~Choose a resource that successively shows how to teach each successive letter combinations such as Brightly Beaming Resources  Teaching Sounds.

~Brightly Beaming Resources has simple spelling lists that really are learning to read extension activities that may be helpful to accompany your learning to read program.

*All breakfasts include a routine of a devotional: Short scripture memorize reciting by each child, one hymn or song, and one scripture story.  After breakfast clean up, we each read scriptures (children look at their own stories and draw pictures in notebooks, (scripture journal) while mom reads scriptures and sometimes writes a note in her journal or scripture journal.

NEW ADDITIONS:

For Lunch:

~Find out the temperature outside for the noon meal

Read one page from the music section in “What your Kindergartner Needs to Know on Monday (Music on Monday)

~Read a short story on Tuesday from my many books.  Don’t try to correlate it or you’ll never do it.

~Read one Science page from “What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know”/ science book/activity after lunch to go with Outdoor Activity on Wednesday JUST A NOTE, we have only done this like TWICE this year!!! Ahhhh!

~Read from Heidi at or after lunch on Friday till the book is over, then read either a fairy tale, or a just so story

~Give Husband Old Testament stories/anything I didn’t get to reading aloud for the Bed time story ATLEAST once a week.

~Encourage Daddio to do a sport w/ Rawl once a week till he makes a habit of it. (Thursday?)

New Daily Routine to start School:

~Pledge/Calendar

~Read a poem

~Review the new Sound of the week words

~Write something

~Read a Fable or Story either now or after lunch, but try to have one read aloud a day atleast for Milly and Rawl (Hazel has her routine books at naptime.)

Literature:  Write what books or what genre of books to look up at the library.

History:  Write in what you will be studying for history, whether it be a genre or a bulleted list of goals to teach.

Math/Music: List songs or musicians you’d like to play, and Math goals or activities here.

Art:  Write in what artists would target your unit, or write in a list of activities you’d like to do.

Drama: If you have some guided pretend play that will guide your unit, write them in here.

Field Trips or Specialist: Plan where you’d like to visit for the unit, and if there are special guests or speakers you’d like to arrange.

This is an exciting day!  I analyzed my life and realized what was happening with my homeschool, and realized— I LIKED it!  When I first started out, I tried to set a routine and stick to it.  I ironed out the wrinkles and got into a groove of a little routine which became fairly easy when my mind knew what to do next!  But what I found is that on some days, this went like a song, and I loved it, BUT on days when I was dragging the kids, or dragging myself, I was really burning out!

The perfect balance, I came upon!  That is on days when things roll on relatively smooth, we school!  Or when I am tired of being unorganized and stretching things out, we school!  We do a routine, we get things done fairly quickly.  But on days when I can’t get into the groove, or have too many distractions, or want to but notice its taking too much energy to get the kids on board, then we unschool!  Unschooling works great too, because as I let the kids imaginatively play, they float in and out.  I can make an assignment through the day here and there, or just watch bemusedly as Milly or Rawl design their own learning.  Milly will make up party invitations and write everyone’s names on them, or scrap book some pictures, spend hours on the couch looking at books talking or singing aloud little stories, and Rawl will build with blocks, build his tractors and sit and draw forever on the couch.   I will sometimes sneak in some planned curriculum reads as read-a-louds in bed time stories! On ‘schooling’ days, they still usually imaginatively play and self-learn too, but it can feel great sometimes to have more control and feel accomplished in meeting a planned goal in the situation, and on other days, I let nature take its course and sometimes insert learning when I feel ready to impart it or that a learning window has chanced upon me.

Either method gets done what needs to, usually!  And I have even let go completely on a few days with family in town, and noticed with a break, that we got more done on the next few days we schooled again!!!

Ebbing and flowing with life, its quite amazing how our bodies will tell us what to do, if we really listen, both us and our children!