Developing a love for reading

My boy, now 5 years 5 months old, is reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum, the original and unabridged version. He reads a few pages out loud to me everyday.

I help him to understand the book better, by acting out the story. We used soft toys to represent the different characters, as shown in this photo:

The kangaroo played the cowardly lion, the monkey played the scarecrow, the rabbit played Dorothy, and the dog played Toto. My boy played the Tin Woodman. The photo shows the exciting scene when Dorothy and her friends were being chased by the scary monster, played by the little bear. When they reached a very deep gulf, the Tin Woodman chopped down a tree (the bolster), so that Dorothy and the others can cross the gulf. When the monster followed them across the tree, the Tin Woodman chopped away the end of tree, and the tree crashed into the gulf carrying the monsters with it.
My boy really enjoyed moving the toys around to act out the story, and he is very excited when he played the Tin Woodman. The best thing was that he started to imagine alternative plots to act out with the toys.

Here are the 2 pages from the book that describes the exciting adventure :


When Dorothy and her friends reached the Emerald City, they were required to put on spectacles with green glasses :

My boy did not understand why they must put on the spectacles, so I made our own spectacles to help him understand that everything appears green when he looks through the green plastic film. My boy had a lot of fun helping me make the spectacles :
After making and trying on the spectacles, he kept asking me to let him read the book ! He is fascinated by the book and cannot wait to find out what happens next.

Before the Wizard of Oz, he finished reading the original Winnie-the-pooh by A.A. Milne :

When he just turned 5 years old, he has read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl :

My boy is of average learning ability. He has a short attention span and cannot sit still. I am very happy that he is able to read very fluently now at 5 years 5 months old. He is able to read a page from the books above in less than 5 minutes.

He has never attended any English enrichment classes. I started to teach him phonics at home since he was 3 years 3 months old. I designed a grouping and matching game for him to learn phonics :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-teach-phonics.html

He thought he was playing games all along, and did not realize that he was learning.

Since English is not completely phonetic, it is very important to teach sight words. I use the Ladybird Peter and Jane series.
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/12/key-words-with-ladybird.html

I taught him to read one or two pages a day from the Peter and Jane series. He reads every word out loud. Many experts will tell you to read as many books to your child as possible. But the fact is that the more effective way to learn to read, is to ask your child to read out loud to you.

He finished reading book 11a at 4 years 9 months old, after which I let him read other interesting books :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2009/09/books-they-love.html

The fact is that I am a full time working mommy, and I can only afford to spend very little time teaching him to read every day after I return from work :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-do-i-manage-to-find-time-to-teach.html

By teaching phonics and sight words at the same time, the results are amazing. I believe that children of all abilities can learn to read any English book before the age of 6, if we use the correct methods to teach them. There is also no need to spend many hours a day teaching them.

Phonics is helpful not only for reading, it is also very helpful for spelling. My boy, now in K2, has spelling every week. He does not need to practice writing the words at all. He is able to spell the words correctly by listening to the sounds. Thanks to phonics, spelling is very easy for him.

I strongly believe that kids can learn to read very well at home, without the need to attend expensive enrichment classes. I have only spent less than $200 on the resources like the Leapfrog DVDs and the Peter and Jane books. These resources were also used to teach my 7 year old girl to read.

I know that many parents are not confident to teach phonics. The fact is that any adult who knows how to read English books and write in English, actually already knows the foundation of phonics. All we need are resources to teach phonics to kids. I never learned phonics when I was a child. I learned about phonics by watching the Leapfrog Letter Factory and Talking Words Factory DVDs with my kids. www.starfall.com is an excellent free website for learning phonics. Phonics is very easy for adults who already know English.