Reading, Writing, Typing, Latin and so much more!!

I have recently come across a wonderful website (www.donpotter.net) filled with priceless information. I wish I had known of these ebooks when we were first starting phonics. I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier for Daniel Boone to learn phonics this way. I'm thinking of printing Word Mastery for the First Three Grades and allowing Daniel Boone to spend 10 minutes a day doing this phonics program to instill these concepts into his brain and making reading easier for him. Don also suggests using The Phonics Page to help older students with phonics work. I'll be reviewing this website this week also.

I'm certainly looking into the Latin ideas here. Today we have downloaded the Read, Write & Type demo from TalkingFingers.com that Don Potter suggests and will try it to see if we'd like to purchase it to learn to type and as a review of phonics rules. I wish we had done this early in my children's phonics lessons. What a great idea to have them learn to type while learning to read and write.

Reading incentives

To help my children learn to read and work on their reading skills outside of our "school time", I would make game boards. I got this idea from Hooked on Phonics (which we loved!!). You can make game boards easily. Go to Donna Young's Game Board page and choose a game board. Each square could equal time increments (we used 15 minute increments) or a single book. I write what each square is worth on the square. When they complete that square, they either color it in or put a sticker in it. There is always a reward at the end. We live within 2 hours of Six Flags and they offer free tickets for reading. So our game board is always for a free day at Six Flags. We usually draw something at the end like "Yeah! We're going to Six Flags!"

We hang these on the refrigerator in plain sight. This makes it easy to remind them to do some extra reading. Also, seeing lots of stickers on a siblings map encourages others to "catch up".

This is a fun way to get them some extra practice. Most of my children are reading well, but we like this and will continue it this year!