Teaching your child to read

I must say that reading is one of my favorite things to do with writing coming in a close second. To instil that same love of books to my children has been a huge goal for me over the years. I started teaching both of my children to read around the same time. A~man was almost 7 and Z~girl was 5. I used the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 easy lessons". I was a bit nervous at first because it was a slow start the first couple of weeks with both children. After a month though Z took off with no looking back. At the end of that first year Z was reading two years ahead of her grade level. Ever since she has been a  voracious reader. I used to love the reactions of the librarians when she would check out over a dozen chapter books and bring them back less than two weeks later. She doesn't consume quite so many books at 10 but she still brings a book wherever she goes.

It has not been an easy voyage with A's reading yet still he LOVES books and loves a good story. Teaching him to read has involved so many different approaches. His online phonics program has been invaluable to him learning how to put sounds together and also learning how to comprehend what he has read. For him it has helped that he can hear it read, read it himself, and then answer the questions the computer asks.  Learning sight words was also invaluable as memorizing is fairly easy for him. Plus we try to have him read to us every day. Sometimes I will make a chart of blocks and he can color in a block for each 15 minutes he has read to us. Scattered throughout the chart I will put motivators such as-a trip to the game store, renting a movie of his choice, a trip to the dollar store, and the very occasionally trip to go out to eat with just one of us. (he loves the alone time even more than the food I believe) Another thing I have done with the kids is for them to make a menu (or me) and to play restaurant. I know this might not work with some children with PWS but it's never caused a problem with A~man. Or we have played store by me keeping old cereal boxes/drained soda and water bottles/pizza boxes and I have made them a list and they had to go "shopping" for what was on the list. This was also a great way to include math by them paying the cashier for the items. They LOVED this.

I'm  not sure if reading will ever be easy for A~man but I hope both he and his sister keep their love of books.