Why doesn’t he like to read?

Ian is a good reader, but he doesn’t enjoy it. Does anyone else have this problem? He does fine with his schoolwork, but he rarely reads for pleasure…and that bothers me. Am I being silly? Should I just be happy that he has good reading skills, and will occasionally read a magazine or a non-fiction book? (That’s all the reading that many adults do, after all.) But I really want him to like stories! Is that selfish of me? Am I just wanting him to be like me?

Post from the Past: Help with Math and Reading

This post was from last year; it’s incredible to read again and see how far he’s come in just one school year!

The best way I have found to help Ian get everything done is to make him do his least favorite subject first, and early in the morning at that. It used to be reading, and then math for a while, but I have no idea yet what this year will bring. It will probably be writing. Doing his least favorite subject first helped both him and me. Until we started getting up earlier I found that I would procrastinate beginning the school day at all when I knew we had to look forward to the dreaded subject, and all of the whining that accompanied it. So I just got Ian up early, and started the day with it. Sometimes we would even do it before breakfast. That leaves the rest of the day to look forward to.

I also have trouble getting Ian motivated to complete his work in a timely fashion. So I’ll tell him he has 2 hours to get done with math and play his video game. His next subject starts promptly when those 2 hours are up. If he spends 1 hour and 45 minutes on his math, he’ll only have 15 minutes to play. I think this is helping motivate him, but it’s a slow process. (If he could stay focused, his math would probably only take him about 20 minutes, but he gets distracted so easily. I keep thinking that he would probably be diagnosed with ADHD if I sent him to a public school.)

One of the ways I have failed Ian is by procrastinating in teaching him his math facts. I think he could finish his math in about 10 minutes (distractions aside) if he didn’t have to figure every single problem out from scratch. So we’re taking the month of September to work on flashcards. I’m going to let him answer as many addition facts as possible in 60 seconds. Then we’re going to see if we can add a couple of cards to the pile while completing them in the same amount of time. We gave it a try the other day, and it was definitely more fun than reciting facts. We’re also going to do subtraction and beginning multiplication and division, but separately for a while.

I don’t have any idea if you all are struggling with reading, but here is what I have done: I have prioritized reading way over science, history, etc. I figured the faster he could learn to read well, the better. I merely read Ian’s science and history out loud to him last year; we spent most of his study time learning to read better. I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but Ian’s reading skills just took off when we bought him the Kid’s Day by Day Bible and had him read to himself from it every night. Until your child is really excelling in the basic areas: reading, writing, arithmetic – I wouldn’t worry too much about the other subjects, except Bible, of course, which you can count for history. You could also get some nature readers and knock out science while working on reading skills.

A Prompt Disguised as Reading…

Research something you know absolutely nothing about. Pick up a magazine that you would never have considered buying, and flip through it for inspiration.

I always thought it would be cool to build a science fiction story off of a Popular Science article, for instance. I also know nothing about horses. I wonder what kind of inspiration I could glean from  Equestrian? Or a mag about outdoor survival? Visit your local library, and see where your imagination takes you!

Switched!

Ian and I just read the book TJ and the Time Stumblers: Switched! by Bill Myers. The book was about a girl, TJ, who happens to be friends (and I use that term loosely) with two time-travelers from the 23^rd century. They follow TJ around and attempt to help her solve her problems – she’s a great historical figure where they come from. At the same time, she gets wrapped up in their escapades as they try to make their way back to their own century. They make a lot of mistakes along the way (nobody’s perfect), which result in often hilarious consequences. The theme of this book is forgiveness.

My seven-year-old absolutely loved the book, but I’m not sure he understood the references to the preteen crushes and insecurities. He laughed out loud a lot though! I enjoyed reading it to him, but the book got on my nerves more often than not, with its constant interruptions (there are giant, bold print words on nearly every page that represent loud noises and shouting) and the cutesy names of all of the characters. However, I doubt these things would be a problem for the age group for which the book is intended. I’m assuming it’s for 5^th and 6^th graders?

Here is Ian’s review (my seven-year-old): That was a great book! No book’s funnier than this book!!! The one guy turned into a waterspout; it was so funny. It could talk. TJ and Hesper’s bodies got switched around.

If you want to find out more, check out the product page for this book.

Note: In exchange for an honest review, Tyndale House Publishers provided a complimentary copy of this book.

A prompt disguised as reading…

Read the first 75% of any book you’ve never read. Stop. Now outline the rest, and write the last scene! This would be great to do with partners.

Armbruster Puzzles

I made a mistake in one of my Famous Home Scholars articles. I was so embarrassed! However, my publisher forgave me (phew! I’m not fired!), and so did the nice fellow who brought the mistake to our attention. The man who wrote to the magazine (on behalf of the Wright Brothers) turned out to be a great guy, and while I will always regret that my error is in print, I am certainly happy to have made his acquaintance.

I learned a lot about him during the course of our correspondence: he loves model planes, he’s very sincere about education, and he creates word puzzles for children. He sent us a bunch of puzzles in the mail, and Ian has had a blast filling them out! Ian even created a game out of them by racing to see which of us could finish our puzzles first. After completing several of them, he wanted to write Mr. Armbruster and tell him how much fun he had! You can visit Mr. Armbruster’s website at http://www.armbrusterpuzzles.com/

I hope I’m not missing anything!

When Ian was in kindergarten, I completely forgot to teach him how to write. I was so focused on math concepts and teaching him to read, that it just slipped my mind. When first grade came around, I gave him his first language book, and then it hit me! My baby barely knows how to write! So during the first part of first grade, we moved very slowly through his language book. I made up copy sheets for him every day. At first he started out tracing, but eventually I was able to write a line and skip a line, and he was able to copy each of my lines into each blank one. Fast forward one year, and he is writing well, but he still hates it. I hope I didn’t do that to him…

I was reading another homeschool blog earlier this morning. She talks about taking the eclectic approach for English with her ninth-grader. She also has a fun list of what hasn’t worked for her family. You should check it out!

Anyway, reading her blog reminded me that I’ve been wanting to give you all an idea of what we do around here. As I may have mentioned before, we begin each day with language. He likes that subject the least (probably because it involves writing), so we get it out of the way first. So far this year, we have done Total Reading Grade 2. While the title implies reading skills, it is so much more than that! It covers grammar, writing skills, testing, and has some creative writing projects as well. We have finished that book, all but the last ten or so pages, which I am saving for stressful days because he actually enjoys the testing section of the book. Today we will begin Language Arts 2, which is published by Harcourt Family Learning. We move at a rate of about 6 pages per day, so I intend to be finished with this one by Christmas. The topics covered in this book are Parts of Speech, Sentences, Mechanics, Vocabulary and Usage, Writing, and Research Skills. Both of these language books I picked up at Barnes and Noble, and I really like them. We enjoyed the first-grade versions as well. After finishing the language books, we will move on to Harcourt’s Writing Skills for Grade 2. I’m expecting this book to slow us down, but as long as we finish by April or so, I will be happy. After that, we will be focusing on creative writing. So our breakdown of the morning is as follows:

30-120 minutes on language (depending on how much time he wastes not focusing).

20 minutes reading for leisure (I always let him choose this chapter book – it is usually Magic Tree House).

30 minutes reading for science or history (always a chapter book such as a nature reader or book about Abraham Lincoln – I choose).

10 minutes reading aloud to me (admitedly, sometimes we skip this step).

I’ve been wanting to begin reading literature to him, like Peter Pan or something above his reading level, mostly so he can learn new words. Right now, I only read his science and history textbooks aloud to him.

30 minutes or so on Spelling City online. I’m using the word lists from A Reason for Handwriting, but when we finish that book, I’m just going to get some lists from the internet.

5 minutes on cursive writing. He’s learning one new letter a day at this point.

Hopefully, my somewhat eclectic approach is covering everything!

What methods/techniques do you use for language?

In the Aerie of the Wolf

Imagine your arranged marriage to a secluded and secretive man. I just finished devouring In the Aerie of the Wolf by Leonora Pruner. The story focuses on a young woman whose financially struggling parents send her to the estate of a wealthy man in exchange for freedom from their debts. As Anne settles into her new home, she is anxious to meet her fiancé, but the mysterious master doesn’t seem interested in introducing himself to her. Will Anne be able to find love in these strange new surroundings?

To tell you the truth, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I’ve only read just a few Christian fiction books in my whole life; however, this book reveals how much I’ve really missed by ignoring the genre. The story was compelling and full of intrigue. From the first chapter, I was totally hooked. What’s going to happen next? As a matter of fact, I was reading it when I should have been doing other things.

I found myself empathizing with the young woman over and over as she struggled with each new turn of events, and each emotion that accompanied it. While my own experiences have been somewhat different, I have still faced many of the same feelings: doubt, betrayal, and despair, and have received more than my share of grace and redemption.

If you want to find out more, check out the product page for this book.

Note: In exchange for an honest review, the publisher provided a complimentary copy of this book through BookCrash®.

Long vowel words

My niece mastered the silent e vowels rather quickly – much more quickly than Ian did. I don’t know whether it’s because she is a little older, or because I am moving slower (making sure she fully comprehends each step instead of pushing through the curriculum). Or maybe, she’s just wired differently. Anyway, it took her about a week to master, and it took Ian several months. (But he’s finally a great reader!) Today, I started her with words that have two vowels in the middle, rendering the first one long and the second silent. Words such as rain, mail, boat, beat, etc. I started out by moving between two similar words, such as ran and rain. We went back and forth several times, and she did fine, but when we started in on the others, I noticed that she doesn’t really know her vowels all that well. You absolutely have to know the difference between vowels and consonants to decipher these words, so we dropped what we were doing and worked on that instead. Since I had my little homemade flashcards out already, I just used those. After reciting A, E, I, O, U several times, I pointed to the r in rain, and asked, “Is r a vowel?” “Yes!” “A, E, I, O, U. Say ‘em with me. A, E, I, O, U. Is r a vowel?” “No!” We did all of the letters in rain individually, then moved through the rest of the 20 or so flashcards. About half-way through, we were able to stop reciting A, E, I, O, U at every letter, and she was able to recall which were vowels without thinking too hard. By the end of the flashcards, she was zooming. Vowels down. Tomorrow, I’ll reteach today’s lesson, and we’ll stop if we need a refresher. We’ve been working so hard on long vowels lately, that I need to remember to go over her 3 sight words tomorrow too. Hope I don’t forget!

Simple manipulative for long vowels

I introduced the concept of long vowels to Jade today. Leapfrog’s Code Word Caper DVD is a great help with this. It teaches that when two vowels walk together, the first one says its name and the second vowel doesn’t say anything. It teaches silent e in the same manner. As an added bonus, it teaches a few digraphs as well. Having an educational video around keeps Jade contentedly learning while I am helping Ian with his language or math.

One way I helped Ian to learn long vowel sounds was by helping him tell the difference between a word with a silent e and without one. So I made little cards with words on them like cape, Jane, and cane. I cut them out individually and folded the silent e’s under. We went back and forth reading can, cane, can, cane. This enabled him to see that the words were alike in all respects with the exception of the silent e. Jade and I tried the game this morning, and she liked it!