Little Readers

I'm not a big "early reader" mom. I don't think that we as parents need to push push push our kids to do things earlier and earlier. I love school, my daughter started preschool at 3 years old. But we did preschool for the purpose of learning to play in community. But Marin is ready to read, she's sounding out words everywhere we go. So I started a few little things around the house to help her out.

I learned this little trick when I worked at preschools. Labels! I made labels for lots of things in our home. Everything in the bathroom, living room, kitchen, bedrooms, hall, doors, floors, rugs, mirrors, colors... everything got named two weeks ago.

I would help Marin sound out the words, and then put the tape on it and she would run off and label the item.

A few have started coming down over time, like when milk got spilled on the "Table" or when Owen got mad and ripped "door" off and threw it in the toilet (next item on the list, better anger management for toddler). I found our writing card stock labels at the Dollar Tree. They have great learning supplies and they have a package of these with 50 in it or something. Kids love seeing words and this is a way to help them connect a word to what it belongs to. She was writing something the other day and ran around the house looking for words so she could write them without having to ask me how to spell it. "Mom how do you spell 'milk' oh wait... never mind I know." Having these words available to her gives her a lot of self confidence in being able to figure it out herself.