The goal is to make reading feel fun and empowering rather than defeating so that this is a solid head start and not the beginning of a treacherous journey.

Hello again! I am here to update you on how we are doing with the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons Or Less. It has been about one month since my last post about this curriculum and here is what has happened since then:

• We have traveled out of state.
• We brought our lessons with us.
• We have had ups and downs with getting into a groove in a different setting.
• We have been through TWO rounds of sickness (the joys of cold and flu season).
• We took a few days off and then started to work on establishing a learning regimen.

It is not yet EASY to get through a lesson; but it is MUCH EASIER! Practice makes better. Modifications and fun make it a lot better! Each day is getting better.

We are currently on Day 25 and the simple modification I made to take the tension out of trying the lessons (for my 4 year old who started to flip out every time I opened the large book) was studying the lesson the day before and making flash cards of the letter sounds and words to sound out. I think looking at one item at a time helped her focus and get less overwhelmed. In the end, we did almost everything recommended in the lesson and with practice we are getting closer to do doing the full lesson.

What do I mean by “most of the lesson”? Well for example some phases of the lesson require a lot of drill and repetition until the child is completely mimicking not only the letter sounds but also every aspect of the DISTAR method. We are doing what we can until I start to lose her attention on the task. I still persist to get her to do a little more than she could do before, but I won’t push to a level of useless frustration. At age 4 she can learn to read, but she DOES NOT have to master it yet. She has time. So we are proceeding with this phonics method as she is growing in her ability to sound out and bring sounds together and that’s a gain I’m happy with at this stage. I also want to emphasize how fun and exciting it is each time she sounds out a word.

The goal is to make reading feel fun and empowering rather than defeating so that this is a solid head start and not the beginning of a treacherous journey. So we are rolling through as much of the lesson as we can to learn but not sweating the minor bits that are left out or not drilled to the extent the author recommends. Each lesson is a script NOT a contract. Flexibility definitely helps.

In my next post I’ll share with you an adorable DIY Tissue Box tool I came up with to make these lessons a little more fun for a child like mine who learns through play. It’s a way to think outside the box with your flashcard use (or is it INSIDE the box?). Stay tuned!