Teaching your child how to read-Pt. 1

Teaching your child to read can seem both intimidating and complicated, but really it isn't.

After I graduated from college with a degree in education and a concentration on reading, I felt I had a good grasp on how to teach reading. When I started teaching, I used phonics (decoding words using certain rules). I taught all the rules and blends but very quickly this became extremely boring!

When I began homeschooling, I used this same approach (don't ask me why!) with my first daughter, Rebekah, and it went well to say the least but became very tedious and wearisome very quickly, and above all else, *yawn* boring!! None the less, we trudged along only to find the reading process was slow.

I tried this approach with Brianna and for a whole year we were not getting anywhere. Both Brianna and I became frustrated, so I started praying asking the Lord "to show me the way". BTW this is what happens when you home school, you pray a whole lot! The Lord lead me to Charlotte Mason's writings about how to teach your child to read. It was an answer to my prayers! So far, it has been a success! What is so encouraging is that it is the same approach that mom's have been using for centuries! Susanna Wesley taught all her children to read this way in the late 1600's! So....the next few weeks I will be logging our journey using this method. Maybe down the road it will help someone else as well.