Actually, I debated starting "school" yet at Sterling's age and with his personality as I discuss below. But I figured a nonchalant approach to begin was the best approach for him. I want school to be fun and interesting to each of my children as individuals, which is one of the reasons I want to homeschool. I want them to be able to work at their own pace fueled by their interests, not having to do a bunch of busy work on things that they already understand but to be able to spend enough time on things that are confusing to them. As an education student we had to spend lots of time thinking about our "philosophy of education." I think that part of mine is that children are individuals and I think that their education should reflect that.
That being said, I didn't want to push him into reading, or anything too formal. Especially, knowing that he is already getting that first-child perfectionistic personality. I know that he will be naturally driven to do well in school, I didn't want to drive any I-have-to-do-well-so-Mommy-won't-be-upset-with-me feelings. Being a first born I know that those will naturally come, and I don't want to fuel the fire, so to speak.
On the other hand, I thought that it was a travesty not to take advantage of his natural love of learning. So I've tried to approach it as a game we play, we play trains, we play cars, and at this point we play school. I do it as long as his attention span allows, then we move on. Again, with his personality, he doesn't really need much external pushing or pressure to do well; it is embedded in him. The funny thing is, when he starts to loose focus (which is usually pretty soon) I ask him if he is ready to do something else, and his answer is almost always, "No, I want to read," or "I want to keep doing school." So I say okay and we press ahead.
A side note: I know this approach will not be good for all of my children. Ann Elizabeth may have to be pushed into doing her school work, or any work for that matter. However, I just see this little boy that NEEDS to do things the right way and I see myself as a child. Having the need to do things correctly can easily turn in to perfectionism which creates unhealthy pressures, so my goal with him right now is to make things fun and to show him that everyone makes mistakes and that it is okay when we do we just try again. He NEEDS to know it is okay to fail!
He is at the point where he has most of the "pre-reading skills" such as the ability to rhyme, recognize the first letter sound in words and can come up with other words with the same sound. He has been able to do both of these for quite some time (at least since his second birthday). So being the teacher that I am, I just couldn't help myself.
He is learning to sound out words. We are learning to blend cvc words (consonant vowel consonant) and ccvc words. I am so shocked by how well he has been doing at his age.
Right now our main approach for reading is using an idea I found on pinterest, where else? It uses paint chips to sound out word families like in the picture. I made a calendar recently out of paint chips, and I guess he was around when I was cutting out rectangles for it because he will say something like, "Can we read with the calendars now?" It took me a while to figure out what he was talking about, but now I know.
We first read the word family we will be using (the large chip). Then we slide the single letters so that we make different words. I try get him to not have to sound out the rhyming sound every time which is usually successful. So after figuring out that a-t says "at" he can usually read the words by just putting each sound with "at" instead of sounding out the whole word, which is a huge reading skill. I wish I was such a wonderful reader!
He has also been working on fine motor skills. I have found a few activities to help with that, and he has also been working on forming letters. I try to make these activities fun, not just worksheets. He traces the letters with his finger on my phone, in rice, we form them with play-doh, and draw them with side-walk chalk. He also does use a pencil to trace them in the news paper and other print, as well as on worksheets I have printed. He loves when he gets to use a pencil.
Note: We purchased a very cheap and on sale b&w laser printer, since I knew we would need to print a lot the closer we get to "real homeschool." I thought it was a good investment as they print much more at a more economical rate. And it only cost what about 2 printer cartridges would cost in our ink jet. And unfortunately our ink jet doesn't support the "cheap ink" so I think this one will save us LOTS of money. Now I don't feel like I'm wasting $$ with each print. It is fast and I love it.
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