I taught Lily to read

Lily learned her letters back when she was two. She has always been interested in letters and numbers and figuring things out. Playing with flashcards and reading books are two of her favorite things.

After she learned all her letters, she could recognize upper and lower case we moved on to learning a word or two that started with each letter. We used flash cards that have a picture on one side and a letter on the other side. We read books about the alphabet that show words that start with different letters. When Mandy was growing up Dr. Seuss's ABCs was one of her favorite books, Lily not so much. She prefers those search books where you have to look for all the things that start with each letter. One day Lily decided we were going to go through the alphabet and say something that started with each letter. We started with a, a is for apple. Then we moved on to b, a is for apple - b is for banana. All the way through the entire alphabet. This was before she turned four. I was really impressed that she would sit still and do this entire exercise. We missed her nap that day, but she was determined and who am I to stand in the way of her learning her words. After going from a to z she insisted that we do it backward from z to a. So funny.

Later we started to learn to spell a few words, like her name. She started to notice all the words in the world and she would just come and tell me that stop is spelled s-t-o-p and Winn Dixie is spelled W-i-n-n-i-e D-i-x-i-e. OK, I get the picture so I started showing her words in her favorite books, rhyming words, animals, colors, etc. Over the course of the next year Lily learned to spell and recognize more than a hundred words. But, I didn't really consider this being able to read. I mean she could pick out her words from books. Whenever we got a new book she would like to peruse the words and show me the ones she knew, but there were always more that she didn't know than ones she did know.

Several weeks ago our library story time was canceled and we ended up going to an indoor play area. One of our the kids that attends both of our playgroups was also there. The mom and I have never really had a conversation before. We say hi, but she has three kids and I have Lily. We each talk to other moms at the same time but never really talked to one another. We were the only two at this play place. It is a cool place with big comfy couches and magazines for the moms with the ability to see all the little play areas. The kids have climbing toys and rooms full of groceries, or kitchens, or dress up. Her oldest is four like Lily but he and Lily do not normally care for one another. They both have very strong personalities and rub one another the wrong way. So usually they just steer clear of each other, but today it was play with each other or play alone. After awhile of butting heads the two of them started to play nicely.

Meanwhile me and the other mom were discussing our fears of how our children would react to kindergarten in the fall. We were worried about how awful it will feel to have a teacher tell us bad things about our kids. We are both working very hard to get our kids ready, but we are both afraid we are failing. I guess it is nice not to be alone. She also shared her Katrina story with me. She lost everything, both her home and business and got zero dollars and zero cents from insurance. Her house was where the epicenter of Katrina hit. Her husband is a doctor and they were able to just pick up and start over. The rest of her family and friends were not so lucky. So many people got nothing from insurance. It is crap.

Her husband insists that she stay home with the kids and read to them at least three hours per day. He pays for people to clean the house and watch the baby so she can read to them. I get the feeling that she gets frustrated with this. She told me that she checks out 25 books per week and they have read every children's book in all the local libraries. Wow. I told her how Lily prefers to read the same books again and again until she has it memorized and then read it some more. That I think it is helping her to read because she knows the words and then when she looks at the page she can figure out what each word is. I told her how Lily knows so many words but doesn't know how to read.

The other mom had this great tip, she said that there are about 30 words that you see in every book words like: the, this, that, which, why, some... If I teach Lily these words she will be able to read most of her books. Wow, I never thought of this. I have been teaching her fun words like animals and colors. I started teaching Lily those words. At first she had no interest in learning those very boring words. I mean what would your rather learn, giraffe or the? Lily likes giraffe. Weirdo. I made some flash cards out of three by five cards. I wrote down all the words Lily knows. I wrote each word twice, once on two different cards. I bought the cards that come in multi colors, like 10 cards in each color. Then we went through all the cards and read all the words she already knew. She thought that was fun, because she knew all the words. We then separated the words by color and played memory. We played a game of memory with each color. So much fun. She actually has a much better memory than me. So everyday I would add a word to our cards. I called the new word, the word of the day. We would spell it in the car, we would play our home made flash card games with our new word etc. Then I would point out that word in the books that we read.

The words that I picked for our word of the day were all the words out of her favorite book: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss. This meant that each day Lily could read more and more of her favorite book on her own. After she could read about six pages she was so excited I thought her head would flip off. She would point to the words and read the story and she got that the words on the page that she was recognizing were telling the story.

It was very exciting, we went and showed dad. Everyone was excited. I think this means she knows how to read. But, I am not sure because she can only read the words she knows, she does not get sounding out words, she doesn't get rhyming words she only knows how to read the words she knows how to read. It is a start at least. Maybe she will begin to understand sounding out when she is ready, so far she looks at me like I am crazy when I try to explain sounding out. I am a read from recognition and not by phonics type of person too so maybe it is just our genetic makeup.

I know what you are thinking, my life is a freaking thrill a minute. Spending my time making homemade flashcards etc. When I try to get her to color or play with paint she just wants to talk about the letters and words. Right now she is sorting her flash cards in alphabetical order.