Reading Progress

I always assumed that my daughter would love reading and just love books as much as I do.  She does love books and being read to, but so far reading is not her favorite pastime.  I'm hoping as she gets older this will change, and I am slowly seeing her enjoy reading more.

I admit I may have started teaching her to read too early.  She was 4, and at the time she was eager to learn to read by herself.  Of course, at that point she was in the stage that she wanted to do EVERYTHING by herself.  I decided to use the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise.  I am a big fan of the homeschooling book she wrote, The Well-Trained Mind, and so I figured her reading and phonics book would be perfect.  Well, that ended up being my first lesson in learning styles.  I took many education classes in college so I of course knew about learning styles, but I hadn't really thought about it concerning K.  OPG was not intended to be used with a 4 year old, but I tried it anyway.  K ended up hating this book.  If I got the book out, she would freak out.  We didn't use the book for very long since it was obvious that we were not really getting anywhere.  I think OPG is a great program, but it was just not for my daughter. 

We took a little reading break, and then started using Hooked on Phonics.  A friend had given me this program, and it completely changed how K viewed reading lessons.  The audio lessons seemed to be much more her style, and she started progressing right away.  We are about to finish up the first level, and move on to the second in a few weeks.  She can now read any BOB book, and has no problem reading the sentences in her Explode the Code 2 workbook.  I am so glad I was able to teach her myself, and I love watching her face when she figures something out or is able to do something that she thinks is too hard for her. 

Back to the subject of learning styles...there was an article on the subject in the November/December issue of The Homeschool Handbook magazine that suggested reading Discover Your Child's Learning Style.  I am looking forward to reading this, and seeing if the curriculum I have chosen so far fits with their learning styles.  I would definitely recommend this magazine as well.  They only have two issues out so far, and they have both been great!