[This is not a How To but rather a recounting (confessional) of our experience with our son. We firmly believe that every child is different and should have their learning experiences tailored to their learning styles and interests.]

Unfortunately, I can’t say that my husband and I had very much to do with our son’s abilities with the Alphabet, Phonics, sight words and even limited sign language. I give the credit to our son’s voracious appetite for learning and several happy accidents that came along the last year or so of our lives.

Before our son was even born …

My husband and I knew we wanted to homeschool our children from the beginning. It was one of the things we discussed before getting married and continued to discuss during the pregnancy with our baby boy. And from the beginning our son always loved to play with books. He loved to feel them, hold them, turn the pages so we were hopeful.

We were hopeful he would one day grow up to love books and reading but he was too young to do much more than occasionally read to him or help him turn the pages to look at the pictures.

I always thought we’d be THOSE PARENTS. You know, the one you always secretly compare yourself to. The ones that would NEVER EVER let their kids watch TV because it destroys their learning abilities and squashes creativity. But life has a funny way of teaching us things!

ENTER REALITY! For us this meant, four moves including two weeks living out of a hotel (during our furthest move of 280 miles) and three job changes in a year. We lived out of boxes for over a year and although I planned for as many toys as possible to stay out of storage as long as possible, eventually everything needed to be boxed up and stored away.

So during one of our visits to the Grandparent’s house, while trying to entertain the baby with our limited abilities, I ran out of songs to sing to him … I admit, my repertoire is low in the children’s song category … I consulted Youtube.com for inspiration which lead to the occasional playing Alphabet Videos.

I didn’t think much of it. Of course, I worried about how watching TV would affect him but I hoped it had enough educational value to cancel out any harm. I hoped this would just make it easier for him to learn the Alphabet later and not have any of those negative effects I had heard about.

It started with a song …

To our surprise with in a few weeks he was singing the Alphabet himself and recognizing the letters everywhere we went. Some lady even told us to “Control [our] child” when we went to a B-B-Q restaurant covered in license plates from different states and he proceeded to shout the letters out, EACH AND EVERY ONE!

If we had to wait in line somewhere, the only thing that would keep him entertained was for me to write the Alphabet on a paper or napkin or whatever was handy as he followed along reading each one aloud.

But after a while, these videos got boring. Not to the baby but rather to my Husband and I … there is only so many times you can listen to the Alphabet song before you start unconsciously humming it … in the elevator … to the awkward gaze of strangers.

And then came Phonics …

So I took the next natural step: Phonics Videos, which the baby loved even more! (In hind sight and after reading more and speaking to a few professionals, I would have played the Phonics videos first because the Phonics are the foundation of reading, the Alphabet are just the names of the letters and can be learned later.)

I premeditatedly only played the videos once or twice a day as I did not want to bombard him or wear him out on the subject, although if I played them when ever he asked for them I would have played them 24 hours a day. And I felt guilty for letting him watch TV to get a little quiet time to sneak in the dishes or just sit for a minute. HE WAS NOW OBSESSED WITH PHONICS!

My response was of course to worry. I am a mother after all! So I spaced out playing the videos and mixed in numbers, shapes and sign language along with songs and short videos to arrive at a 25 minute playlist. HE LOVED IT! But my husband and I agreed to limit his TV watching and only play it when he asked and no more than two times a day.

One word … then another …

Around this time, we saw some flashcards on sale so I picked up the alphabet and the numbers sets to add to his play box. I expected him to play with them once and find them strewn around the house for the next six months but I got them anyway. Our son surprised us yet again by sitting for hours playing with the cards, organizing them and even hiding them in his highchair so he could pull them out later to his father’s and my surprise!

I also got him his Own Leaptop and a Scribble and Write as most everything was still in storage and I wanted them for him.

Another couple of months passed and we again became exhausted of the videos while our son continued to watch happily. Around this time I received an email from Groupon about an Early Learning System called the Preschool Prep Series Collection. They were offering their 10 DVD Boxed Set (Meet the Letters, Meet the Numbers, Meet the Shapes, Meet the Colors, Meet the Sight Words 1, 2 & 3, Meet the Phonics – Letter Sounds, Digraphs & Blends on sale for a deep discount. It was reasonably priced and would provide a change from the Youtube videos so I placed the order.

We started by playing one of the 30 minute videos a day and I creating 5 by 8 Index Cards to review in the during our afternoon coloring time as an additional activity to change things up a bit. (edit: I later learned the Preschool Prep Company had thought of Flashcards too and could have saved me a lot of time.)

… and then he was Reading!

During all this time, we continued our day to day lives and really only did his “school” time when our son asked for it, as I didn’t want to confuse our desire for him to learn with his own curiosity and hunger for learning.

We also played with cars, built things with blocks, had coloring time, played on the swing, played with the puppies and ran outside in the pasture. He also helps with the animals around the farm and likes to throw a ball around inside the house, no matter how much I ask him not to.

I try to make sure he gets all the play time he can handle and explores everything he is curious about (that won’t bite him or hurt him and it’s so gross that washing it off still won’t appease me) and I make sure he plays in the dirt every chance he gets. Because that is why we sacrificed all year to moved out here after all!

We then graduated to Sight Word Books which are composed of 90% sight words with some new simple words for parents to help the child sound out. Again, LOVE! We read a different one each night. Sometimes 3 and 4 times in a row. Then the next days, I would use the new words and make 5 by 8 Index Cards to review them if he wanted to play the flashcard game.

I try not to put too much pressure on him because I understand that any “reading” he is doing right now is due in a big part to memorization and the fact that he loves watching these videos over and over.

Each night we set some time aside to read and we practice sounding out the words so he builds the habit. And every once in a while, I jump up in shock and applauded him when we run across a word we didn’t cover and he reads it triumphantly by himself.

These days we are up to using Sight Word Flash Cards with sentences , Easy Reader Books and I even got him a LeapReader Junior Book Pal (though his interest in it is more in seeing how far he can throw it across the room than anything else).

It still doesn’t cease to genuinely surprise me when he pulls out a book and starts to read the sentences out loud like a proclamation saying “Look at me! I’m READING!”

I mean, we still have a way to go before he is sitting in his reading spot reading Camus, Vonnegut or even the copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends I already have waiting for him on his bookcase. But like so many things in life, it is a journey, which should be enjoyed for how far it takes us away from who we used to be. He will move forward the same way we came this far, out of his own curiosity and hunger to learn. And for now, I will enjoy our evening reading time and all the snuggles that come with it and revel in each little step he takes forward in what I hope is a life long journey of learning.

Don’t forget to check out our Resources for Homeschooling page for a full list of items used.

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