Learning to Read

Well hello there folks! It's good to be back. Lately, I have been doing a lot of work with my eldest daughter Miss Eden, following a general curriculum (see here for more on the curriculum) and supplementing with plenty of activities and experiences of our own. This has certainly kept her and I very busy - and Ava too, who does her own 18 month old versions of our 'work'. Until this week, it seemed that Eden had settled into a comfortable learning rhythm.
Until this week.

Where it all began... the first of Classified: Mom's packs,
which Eden decided was the best thing IN THE WORLD!!!

On Monday, Eden informed me in her very grown-up voice, that she wanted to learn to read.
Really, it was no surprise given that she has shown signs of reading readiness for some time now, but truthfully, I didn't feel like I was ready to invest the time yet (especially with the pregnancy-related niggles and sleep deprivation in high gear at the moment!). So I did what parents do... sucked it up (Aussie slang for 'got over it'), and prepared to teach her how to read some sight words. I was utterly unprepared, however, for how voracious her appetite for learning has become in this area. In the course of four days - two of which she has been sick - she has leant twelve words which she can read and spell from memory!

Classified: Mom's printable Farm Animals Sight Word Pack,
laminated and velcro-ed up

The difficulty is this: I used the fabulous free printable packs from Classified: Mom, printed, laminated, cut up (thanks Mum for your help!) and set up these folders for Eden. She LOVES them, and I mean, LOVES them. She thinks the velcro bits are the best and really enjoys using this format to learn her words. However, she has already learned all the words in the three available packs. I anticipated it would take a few weeks to work through them, but she thought a few days was better. There are no more on the site, and I can't find any others which are formatted in a similar way, or are adaptable as adequate replacements. Yikes. What do I do now?

The Rock N Roll Pack from Classified: Mom

I make my own of course! They are a work in progress (read: I'm creating them as I type this), but soon to be available right here for you lovely folks, if you're so inclined.
In the meantime, I also created some flashcards for Eden based on the 100 Most Used Words, which actually comprise about half of all the reading and writing we do. As Eden masters reading these simple words, she will be able to immediately recognise many of them in the books we read each day, and I am hoping this will give her more confidence to learn other words too.
I will be introducing these words to Eden alongside some of those on the Dolch Sight Words List - there is significant overlap anyway - and will also be posting some Dolch List Flashcards in the near future. There are certainly plenty of flashcards already available for free on the internet, but I did not want any with distracting borders or pictures to act as visual aids, and I also wanted them to be in the Victorian Modern Cursive font, which is the font used in schools across Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. I could not find any freebies which met my expectations, and so have made my own (using the desired font).

So now, to the freebie! I have included a list of the 100 Most Used Words, small flashcards (good for pasting in scrapbooks), and medium-sized flashcards (which we will be blu-tacking on her 'Words I Can Read' wall). Click the image below to download the file.

The usual spiel applies: These are for personal use only and are not to be resold or redistributed. If you wish to use these on your blog/site you may do so only if you credit this blog and link back to this post (not the download link). Thanks!

I'll be posting shortly about some of the ways in which we use these cards, and also with ideas on how to teach the words to your Munchkins!

Thanks for reading, I hope you like 'em!

~ L.