Small step...huge victory!

Recently, I was inspired and encouraged by a friend in California to start teaching our kids how to read. Since our kids live in a bilingual world we have been advised to not stress about reading in English until a little bit later on in elementary school. It can be confusing to learn 2 languages and I can completely understand the rationale. However, the project must be tackled at some point. Upon Christy's recommendation we bought Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann. All the lessons are laid out for you and tell you exactly what you as the teacher need to say and how your child needs to respond. It is phonics based so has double the bonus since Italian is also phonetical, although some letters variate in pronunciation. This week I began the process with Samuel and have been so encouraged by his excitement to work through these 20-30 minute lessons. He is doing really well and the other great thing is is that he is more willing to try writing. He is over 5 and still can't write his name! But for some reason he is more cooperative after working on the sounds from his lesson. How wonderful that the first 3 sounds that we work on are S-A-M. For those that know Samuel you know that he is a perfectionist and doesn't like to try things if he doesn't think he can do it perfectly the first time. He whined a little bit that his "m" was not right but hopefully the over the top praise from his parents will keep him moving forward and encouraged. So these are little baby steps but a huge victory in our minds in regards to Samuel. He even wanted to teach Emma himself from the book! So far it is working out well since our learning time is during Luca & Emma's naptime. If you are looking to teach your kids to read this is the book and designed for kids 3-5 years of age. Happy Reading!