Beginners Reading with Cole

Cole has had the privilege of going to pre-school half day at a wonderful Montessori school where he has learned sandpaper letters (letters that are engraved sandpaper on smooth paper) and their phonetic sounds. We of course have also been working on letters and their sounds at home. Cole has been resistant to "work" at home, so I try to be creative and educate when time and attention permits. He is comfortable enough with the alphabet and its sounds so we've been working on simple words. We "work" while reading and I ask him to sound out short words in books and also with puzzle letter pieces or magnets. He loves to "write" with these letters, particularly his name. I decided to see how well we could do with a list of words today using puzzle pieces during the twins nap time. He did super! So proud of my 5 1/2 year old boy. Now to keep adding to the list of sounds and words :)

While I love the Montessori school, it is very expensive, so I am pretty sure I am going to be homeschooling next year for kindergarten. I have nothing against public schools but we unfortunately were assigned to a public school with a rating of 2/10 and a bad reputation. So frustrating when we lived closer to a public school with a rating of 10/10! That being said, I'm kind of excited to homeschool. My older sister Tiffany with 5 children has been an excellent example of the homeschool system. Trying to get myself and Cole ready for a slight change of pace. Hope you are enjoying your summer!