Another fish tragedy and homeschool tip for beginning readers

Tragedy struck earlier this week when Tabby's Betta fish Peacock died.  Tears flowed until Tabby was able to bury him properly.  She was furious at Betta fish for not living long. (This is her second one that died.) But in the next breath she said she was buying another one.  So yesterday a new Betta fish named Sunrise moved into the late Peacock's humble abode.

Welcome Sunrise.  We hope you'll stick around awhile.  A long while.

Where is Solomon??

Peek-a-boo!  (or as we say "peep eye!")

I was a bit surprised recently when Solomon started playing this game with me!  He likes to do this while I'm changing his diaper.  What fun!

I am very much a "phonics person." That's how I taught Tabby to read and that's what makes the most sense to me.  However Hunter is learning many words by sight.  I'm certainly not going to discourage that.  As long as a child wants to learn - feed them!

A couple years ago, we bought some old psalters from our church, when they were replacing worn out copies.  We have made one of those copies Hunter's.  Each week we find out the psalms/hymns that we are going to sing the next Sunday. 

I take that list and then go through the psalm or hymn and highlight all the words Hunter knows.  (I don't do words like "the" or "and", etc.)  Then while we are singing that song at church, Frank or I hold the book where Hunter can see and move our finger under the words as we sing.  Hunter doesn't always follow along, but he often is happy to see words he knows and sometimes even points out words I missed.

During the sermons and during family Bible reading time at home, we allow him to highlight or underline words he knows in his Jesus Storybook Bible.  He usually does a really careful job looking for the words he knows and marking them.

Children become interested in words at different ages.  I think many children would enjoy this activity.