Teaching the Kid(s) How to Read

On my list of things to start on my maternity leave, I included the task of teaching my son, Leepo, how to read. I think we're off to a really good start, so I'll share what has worked well so far.

This is obvious, but we started with the ABCs. We sang the alphabet until it was memorized, then we went through this stack of flashcards as often as we could many months earlier. I just love the Eric Carle letters because they're so vibrant and display all different kinds of animals. I admit to using fruit snacks as an incentive, though I have mixed feelings about rewarding kids with foods (am I laying the ground work for eating disorders later on?).

Once Leepo mastered letter cognition with the accompanying sound, we moved on to this nifty paint chip idea I found, where else?, on Pinterest.

Here you see my son playing with word stems that contain a window view box (got these from Lowe's) on a color sheet that contains first letters (from Home Depot). We sound out each component first and then put them together. I think he's starting to grasp the concept now.

The only thing to warn you about is that since these are paint chips, and they're good quality paint at that, even permanent marker will smudge off. Also, be warned about unintentional curse words. The nice thing about using a fold-out book for the initial letters is that you can plan ahead and separate out Tr for truck and F for food if you know what I mean.

Some high yield word stems:

-it
-ig
-at
-oy
-ook
-oon
-ite
-ing
-ove
-ack
-ob
-eep
-ain
-est