Word Families

*disclaimer: this post is exactly like every other post on this blog: to document our girl's lives (because I'm sure not writing all this stuff down on paper!), but this one could easily be viewed as bragging (and I will be the first to admit that I'm just a little proud of our big girl!). so if you're not a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, or anyone who doesn't think our girls are the cat's pajamas, please don't read any further. if you do, do so at your own risk and please take it at face value, as nothing more and nothing less! happy reading!

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One of the few things I remember about the basics of reading are word families. Sure, there are sight words; but word families seemed to be a good starting point. Right?

Addie has been talking about beginning sounds and rhyming words for a while now. There isn't much difference to her between the two. Sure, she can rattle off words that rhyme with cat: rat, bat, sat, mat. But then she'll up and tell me that rock and rack rhyme, when in fact she's just hearing the same beginning sound.

I've resisted putting on my teacher hat and pushing; but when I've seen the door/window open, I've jumped at the opportunity. Recognizing letters quickly turned into learning their sounds. Tracing her name turned into writing it independently. Me enunciating and repeating beginning sounds has turned into her recognizing them on her own.

And today. Today a light bulb turned on. I mean, I saw it light up. An understanding that hasn't been there before.

The baby girls were asleep. While I was eating breakfast, Addie played a word game on my iphone: put the letters on the letters to spell the word: c-a-t. Then we played memory, and she decided on puzzles next. She chose her letters puzzle. I remember thinking, how on the earth am I going to come up with anything different than what we've already done: find the letters, what sound does each make, let me see if i can trick you, find the letter that makes the sound, put the puzzle back together...

When she busted out with c-a-t. C-a-t spells cat.

Um...yes. And I jumped.

We found the letters and spelled c-a-t. Then I pulled the c- and put another letter in front of the -at (aka: word family). At first, she was a little confused. We talked about the beginning sound. We talked about the ending sounds. And we tried again with another letter. And again. Until this is what i started seeing...

But then there were a few that confused her, like m- and r- and s-...

So we worked a little longer (and put on a skort!). I mixed up just a few of the letters and this is what she all of a sudden did!

And she looked up at me and said: Mommy, you rock!

Ummm...I'm pretty sure it's Addie that rocks! ;)