I'm pleased to announce that Dana is really reading now! Ever since she was able to recognize letters (At 2 she already knew them by heart, not just from memorizing the ABC song but from recognition) we've been learning how to write them and only lately did we start the rudiments of reading.
I know that some parents use flashcards and other tools to teach their kids. I did that when I was teaching her to learn the alphabet. It also helped that we had alphabet puzzlemats that I stuck to our wall which made learning fun and easy :) Why did I stick puzzle floor mats on the wall, you ask? Our bed is beside the wall. If the kids play on the bed and they bounce sometimes they bump their heads on the wall. So to prevent any hard bumps, I stuck these letter puzzlemats to the wall to cushion the blows :) you don't know how many times my kids have bumped on these mats LOL
Anyway, back to Dana's reading. I taught her the sounds of the letters through song.. Watching a lot of Sesame Street helped and is a good source of ideas for me too, seeing as how I was also raised by Sesame Street :) When I felt that she knew the sounds, we moved on to putting the sounds together.. but we did it mentally, right before we slept.. it's like our nightly ritual. she would write the words in the air which also helped in practicing her writing skills.
So fast forward to yesterday where we read a book together. It was raining very hard and there was thunder and lightning so we turned off the PC and the TV. To keep them occupied, I made them choose a book to read. I was reading it at first and then little by little, I would ask her to read the words.. Imagine my surprise when she read the word "Grandma" by herself!! It was such a good sign that my Mom was watching us!!! For her first "long" word to be "Grandma"...
She didn't notice that she was already reading the book by herself.. The book was "But no elephants" by Jerry Smath (if you were wondering)...
I'm so proud of my daughter!!
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