Why Is My Child Struggling to Learn Letters And Sounds?

A little background before we begin... I am a mom to 4 kids, 1 dog and 13 ducks. Our life is loud. If the kids aren't quacking, then the dog is yelling and the ducks are barking to be fed. ...Wait... You can imagine why we went into child #4's parent teacher conference last week and found out that he hasn't quite mastered the letters and sounds that he was supposed to at this point in the kindergarten year.

I am a Certified Academic Language Practitioner and Structured Literacy Dyslexia Interventionist. It is my life's work and passion to teach kids how to read. Sitting in front of his AMAZING kindergarten teacher, who knows my chosen profession, was embarrassing to say the least.

We're now on a mission to catch up with his classmates! And I can report that we've already had great success in the short time that we've been working on mastering his letters and sounds at home.

Want to know what we're doing?

We're following the scope and sequence that works for my students at school! Systematic. Explicit. Cumulative. This is what I know how to do, but I wasn't applying it at home because of the whole 4 kids, 1 dog, 13 ducks, keep everyone happy/healthy/fed/clean/clothed/loved/etc... I needed to add educated to the list. It's now officially on the list!

Here's the routine:

     1. Review. We always review. This is when I get to see if he's really retaining the letters and sounds we've already covered. Some nights are better than others, but the repetition will help get the information into his permanent memory.

     2. Guided Discovery. He loves this part! It's like a game to him. The questions are always the same:  "What do you hear that sounds the same?" and "What do you see that looks the same?"

     3. Explicit Teaching. We sing the ABCs, talk about the letter and its sound, is it a vowel or a consonant, what does our mouth look like when we're making the letter's sound, lots of practice with identifying the letter, and proper letter formation.

     4. Printable Practice. This is when the special twistable colored pencils come out. My little man is all smiles, and I'm now free to shoo a duck out of the garden, or get a kid down from a tree. 

I'm telling you, it works. The routine is comforting and the lesson is multisensory enough that it continues to be engaging.

I'll report back after our next parent teacher conference night and let you know how it goes.

Click on the picture below to see a more comprehensive preview of what we're using and to see if it might work for you too!