Hop on Pop

Johnny has been reading CVC words for awhile, and attempting some others. I asked him the other day if he'd read a book to me -- I pulled "Hop on Pop" by Dr. Seuss since I knew it was very friendly to new readers.

He read I'd say 95% all by himself! So excited! Toward the end of the book, I could tell he was getting fatigued, but he still had a good attitude about it.

He would like to read more, so I think I should encourage that while the interest is there.

I'm drawn to the laid-back philosophy of "just" using books and teachable moments to get through phonics and sight words. The "Teach A Child to Read with Children's Books" and Ruth Beechick's approach as well. They sound great to me, but with my firstborn I just don't have the confidence. Maybe Viv or Amelia will get that approach, idk.

I've read wonderful things about the All About Reading curriculum. Some reviewers said they tried a few other approaches, and wish they just did AAR first.

Part of me bristled a bit at the price tag -- $99 for the first level (we're skipping the pre-reading level). Now, most of it will be reusable with my girls, and I'll just need to add a student pack for them for like $20ish each. So the long-term potential and resale value is there. But still! I could buy a lot of great children's books for that price.

You're supposed to buy a special letter-magnet set to add a hands-on element. I didn't quite like the price tag of that, either, where one reviewer said it was basically thickly laminated paper that was pre-cut out. Meh.

We have some rubber crepe letters from a Lauri puzzle and I'm going to see what we can do with that first, though we won't be able to make all the phonograms with just the 26 letters. Perhaps that plus a white board will be sufficient and if not, I'll get the regular letters sold by that company.

I asked Johnny what he thought about me buying a book that will help me teach him to read. "Do it! When do you think it will get here? I will do it 100 days in a row," he told me. Haha!

So we'll start it when it arrives. P.S., Johnny turned 5 a few weeks ago, Vivie turned 3, and Amelia is 3 months.

As for Viv, she will probably insist on being involved/monopolizing things. I have some coloring books and sticker books for her, and some educational manipulatives that I hope she'll enjoy. Or maybe I can distract her with ... gasp... a movie. Lol. I will do whatever it takes.