Building Blocks of Reading

Griffin has successfully mastered recognizing all of his letters and the sounds they make. He loves watching the Letter Factory, and he constantly strings letters together and asks what they spell. Most of the time the words are nonsensical, but I love seeing his brain begin to understand that letters form words. As a reading teacher, I love watching him figure out the first letters in different words. Most of the time, if you ask him what a certain word starts with, he can correctly identify the first letter.

Recently, we ordered some new books through Scholastic Book Orders. Yesterday, we read ABC Animal Jamboree for the very first time. Because he grasped the concept of the book right after page one, he wanted to try and "read" the book by himself. When we got to the letter G, the picture was of a Giraffe. He immediately got a puzzled look on his face, and asked, "Why is G for Giraffe? The letter J makes the "ja" sound Mom. Not the letter G." I had to explain to him that some letters can make a couple of sounds, and then we continued on with the rest of the book. Needless to say, I was pretty proud as I witnessed him develop a bit of phonemic awareness. Too bad only about 50% of the English language actually follows traditional phonics rules. But hey, he has to start somewhere!