Reading Aleena

One of the things I like about life here is that I get to spend a lot of time with the kids. Part of that includes teaching Aleena to read.

ISB's PreK class includes teaching the letters and their sounds. They send home books for the kids to "read". The kids don't actually read them, but the books are structured to be repetitive with pictures filling in the blank.

Both Jacob and Tim could read before entering kindergarten. Tim did a great job teaching them. Now I am doing the same thing with Aleena. We are using the same book that Tim used with the older kids. Generally Aleena and I do one or two pages a day, three or four times a week. Sometimes we go a little while without doing it.

Currently we are working on chapter 3. Aleena knows the sounds of all the letters, and can sound out simple words. She recognizes words like mom, dad, cat, at and dog by sight. Some days are quite painful, as she is not interested in reading. Lately, however, she has really improved. She grumbles a bit about having to do her reading, but when she sits down to do it, she has been focused. Today was the best day so far. She read all the words with very little prompting from me at all. Days like today make those hair pulling days worth while.