My youngest child, Son O., is six-years-old. We began his reading lessons over the summer, just before his sixth birthday. This is the longest any of my children ever waited to begin their lessons, and my mental rule has always been that if they don’t ask to start before their sixth birthday, then I insist that they start once they are six.
Thankfully, he asked right before we got to the point where I insisted. I always like for them to ask.
So now we have run the whole gamut, starting reading lessons at ages three, four, five, and almost-six. I have consistently seen it proven true that teaching is best done when children are ready.
So this one is ready right at six, and I’m glad I didn’t force it before that. He’s doing fine, and it’s going well.
His lessons, then, will be the ones I’m focusing on now. It’s been a while since I’ve started at the very beginning, and a lot of you subscribers are new. So we’re back at the beginning again, and I think that’s a good thing, especially since it gives me the chance to go over everything and update it as I finish turning it all into an e-curriculum.
Teaching reading can be so frustrating at times, but I really think that it’s because we go about it the wrong way. We spend too much time on it, and that puts us at a disadvantage. So, before I leave off for today, let’s revisit one of the Teaching Reading with Bob Books basic principles:
Spend 10-15 minutes per day … and that’s all.
This way of teaching reading is called “gimmick-free” for a reason. When you get past all the clutter in reading curricula, what is effective for a normal child is a short amount of focused attention on the subject each day. We continue to move forward, progressing a bit each day, and the results are promising: the little ones do, in fact, learn to read. And because they aren’t asked to work past their mental breaking points, they even come to like it. This is especially important for the more resistant learners.
So.
Do your binder review. Cover your new material. Read a few pages. And that’s all.
Get My Free Binder Guide!
The Teaching Reading with Bob Books method uses a special binder system in order to simply and easily tailor the frequency of review to the needs of each individual child. This free guide explains exactly what you need and how to build the TRwBB Binder so that you can get started teaching right away.
