Dear Reader,
My preschooler is great at counting! Numbers just click in her head. Letters, however… they might as well be some ancient Hebrew text. They just don’t compute. Although I am definitely an advocate for children learning at their pace, I was curious if we couldn’t aide her a little bit better just by doing a set of activities that were more 3d than just the standard color/cut/glue paper activities. My Family has a history of Dyslexia, and reading is so 2d! So, we made it tactile! And we are focusing on sound and not letter names. Starting with /m/.
I started with /m/ mostly because I’m using Teach Your Child To Read as our baseline. We do the lesson out of that, then we do the Learn to Read Activity Book of the same letter, because they involve movement. Then it’s onto the fun!
This week, we glued pipe cleaners and googly eyes onto our monster! And “teeth” that ended up being horns because they’re above where she put the eyes. When I called to talk to my mom this afternoon, she asked if we used M&M’s and I’m kinda kicking myself for not thinking about that! What a missed opportunity! So if you’re reading this, remember that M&M’s are totally an option.
After the pipe cleaner dried, I had her trace the letters with her fingers. With the pipe cleaners, she’s getting a sensory input while saying “mmmmmm.” Then I kept it handy because we review the sounds throughout the week.
Next lesson will be on the /s/ sound.
