Hello all.
I just found this community within the past few weeks. I'm very excited to have this resource, although I'm overwhelmed by the amount of information contained here.
I would love some advice, please.
We've read books several times a day to our 14.5 month old since he was born. We also sing songs and nursery rhymes. I make a lot of effort to speak about objects and activities as we go about our day. However, I hadn't begun any structured teaching of the alphabet or written language until I started searching for guidance and found this site. Our native language is English and my main focus will be teaching him English, as well as some spoken French, with the hope of encouraging bilingualism. (French is a very common language in our province as well, is taught as a secondary language in our schools, and bilingualism is often required for any government level jobs.)
To date, he has very good comprehension of verbal English and follows simple 1-step directions very well. He uses objects as props to communicate (ie. brings me his boot to go tell me he wants to go outside), and points with his arm (not his finger) to indicate things that he wants. He speaks about 14 words that are easily understood by other adults, which is average for his age. He also has sounds that he uses that have specific meaning that I understand. I've tried teaching him a few signs since he was about 6 months old, but he has yet to sign back to me, although he easily recognizes several.
After reading through most of the BrillBaby website re: "teaching baby to read," as well as some helpful links that forum members have posted, I plan on doing several things:
1.
Teach the alphabet and associated sounds. We picked up a magnetic leap frog mini letter factory at a yard sale and are using that on the fridge. I also started using the Starfall website today, which he loved. I'll introduce a couple new letters a day, and review old ones.
When should I start to try teaching him spelling? After he learns all the letters?
2.
Point to words as we read books. 3.
Use more books with larger fonts.4.
Start using a multisensory method to introduce whole words.I tried a couple of the downloadable slideshows from this site for a few days. Then I decided to make it more personal and created a slideshow with photos of things that are very familiar to him (including things that he already uses as spoken words). I am looking for feedback about whether or not I am approaching the process correctly.
I'm using Microsoft Power Point. For the first slideshow, I started with about 10 lowercase words, using 3 different fonts (comic sans, times new roman, arial) in black, sized 170-200, depending on the length of the word. I put the word first, followed by a corresponding image and sound (if applicable). I randomly repeated the 10 words/images 3 times throughout the slideshow. I preset the slide transition time to 1 second intervals (which I find a bit fast to say some of the words). I showed him the slideshow 2-3 times/day for 5 days, reorganizing the order each day so he wouldn't become used to the sequence. He started to get tired of the first slideshow on the 5th day.
After doing more reading on this site, I realized I had maybe introduced too many words to begin with. For the second slideshow, I used only 5 new words and mixed them up with words from the previous slideshow. I randomly repeated the new words 3 times and the old words 1-2 times. I tried increasing the transition time to 2 seconds, which seemed incredibly long compared to 1 second.
My questions:
-How important is it to put words into categories? I have not categorized things, other than that they are familiar objects to him.
-Is the number of new words I'm introducing acceptable?
-Is the length of slideshow acceptable? (about 40-50 slides)
-What is the longest recommended interval time between slides?
-How do I introduce uppercase letters? Plurals?
-How will I know if he is processing the words? I tried going through the first slideshow slowly after 5 days, asking him what some of the words were (the ones he already uses verbally). He didn't give me any indication that he recognized them.
-Any other recommendations?
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks so much in advance!
Melanie
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