When we decided to take Leilani out of Glen Oaks, we also decided to teach her how to read. I had overestimated her reading ability badly already (given her obvious interest and my knowledge of the Montessori method…) and we figured it was not going to get much better in the new school – which she still loves btw.
So we got the book “How To Teach Your Baby to Read” by Glenn and Janet Doman, it is part of the gentle revolution series, and a method partially based on Montessori, but much more refined, and used successfully on thousands of institutionalized handicapped children. We are not that good at reading ourself, I skipped straight to the “How-To” chapter, read 30 pages and set to work. Andy is not that good either. He read the first 5 chapters, urged me to read them too, because they were just so interesting, and went on to other books (without ever making it to the practical chapter…)
But the method seemed awesome, almost too easy. I interviewed Leilani to get some words of interest and started writing. Huge red lettering, 3 inch high words – they should be that big while neuronal pathways are formed. I first wanted to print them, but figured that the way my Epson printer needs all colors replaced when one runs out that would be an expensive task… I am good and fast at calligraphy.
I started by writing about 30 words, 1/3 English, 1/3 German 1/3 names. They were divided into sets of 5 and shown frequently, one set at a time, for very short time (less than a second per word) – as the book said, knowing the alphabet and being 3 is a little of a handicap with this method, because they focus too much on analyzing, instead of learning the word pattern (Leilani quote: “Give me that word, I want to study it”) – The theory is that adults don’t read letter by letter but word by word, and reading is painful if we focus on letters not words word (try reading hydroxypropylmethylcelloulose, not even my spellchecker likes it.) The book also said the one of the keys is to be joyous and enthusiastic, and that makes all the difference. No testing, and also to go with the flow, and if one feels something needs to be different to go with the feeling rather than with the exact method. I like that.
Leilani loved it from the beginning – we used “The Words” as mini rewards (Hurry up, then we can still do your words before we leave”) and it worked like a charm. But a few days into the game Leilani started changing everything. 2 sets were negotiated before we even started, and then it usually was another last one. OK, we went with the flow. After a few days it was time to exchange words – one per set and day (and remember, no testing.) I asked Leilani which she knew best and she read them to me. From then on she could, as she puts it, win her words. She is highly competitive with it, and gets about 1/2 seconds before I read the word to read it herself and then she gets it, and puts it into her box of words (a former shoe box)
She loves showing of with the words already won, which are quite a few, but interestingly they are almost all German and names, she knows just enough letters I think that the English seems weird… German is pronounced almost exactly as written, and the few exceptions are easy to master, and English pronunciation is still confusing to me after all these years. For a highly logical and argumentative person (her ability to analyze, argue and to reason leaves parents frequently speechless) this is even worse than for someone who can just accept things as they are.
Leilani also added writing lessons – whenever I write new words, she sits with me, and I write the words with pen or highlighter on a piece of paper first and she traces it with a marker, and I write with my fat red marker on cardboard (the book even advised poster board.)
Yesterday when it was bedtime we had finished the reading and I had realized that I was out of German words – I wanted to write just a few for today, but it turned into a major writing lesson – Leilani wrote over 30 words, and did not want to stop until we really enforced the issue.
