Why I decided to homeschool Part 2

When I realized that she was reading at such an early age is when I truly thought that I could homeschool. 

So that's what we did...we read. Hundreds of books....

Read read read...We read!

I have always read to Pipiri. 

Sometimes while she sits on my lap. 

Sometimes with her facing me...no matter how she sits or where she is.....I always point to every word I read...so she can see my mouth moving thus understanding that what I am saying corresponds with what is on the pages of the book.

Sometimes we read outside.

Sometimes at meals.

I read signs to her as we are driving.

I read signs at the grocery store.

I read cereal boxes....the back of food labels...

Magazines. Catalogs. Anything in print I read to her. 

Now that she is a reader and has been for several years. She reads to me also. But I always read aloud to her. 

I am a firm believer in the power of reading.

I know how wonderful it is for children's vocabulary. 

For their imagination. 

For their attention span. 

For imaginary play.

For pretending.

For understanding.

Sequencing.

I wanted her to read early. 

And she did. 

     These are French words she's reading. 

Any book I could find I read it to her. Library books. Discount book stores. Large book stores. Baby books. Chapter books. Nonfiction. Fiction. Poems. Songs. Long books. Short books. 

There are always books everywhere in my house...in every room. She knows she can find a book to read at anytime she wants.

When we would read a book we would then make word lists from that particular book. Sight word lists but with dolce type words (the, a, an, by) and longer frequently seen words in a particular book ( little, hood, mother, wolf, basket, red). 

For example...I would pick out 5-10 words from Little Red Riding Hood, write then on a piece of paper, then hang them on a jute rope from my window with clothes pins. 

I also did this when studying diffident letters of the alphabet.  For example...Dd dog, dinosaur, dragon.

She and I everyday would read these words plus the words from the day prior...then do some reading. Took us maybe 30 minutes to do all of that.

We also wrote many frequently used words on the refrigerator with the letter they started with at the top....on notecards. So any time I was cooking or in the kitchen these cards were at her level and she would read them. 

She's about 19 months here.

Letter sounds...she and I would talk about these a lot in the car. 

"Pipiri what sound does Dd make?" 

"How many sounds does an Ee make?"

"Can you name those two sounds?"

"Tell me two words that begin with Ss?"

"Can you name all of the vowels?"

"What letter comes after Hh?"

This helped her with sight words. Letter sounds. Vowels. Consonants. Knowing the alphabet. 

We also made consonant and vowel salt dough letters. The vowels are red and the consonants are blue.

So this whole homeschooling thing .....yes I've been doing it with her since birth.