The Written Word

For months Zoe has been spelling out words and asking what they spell.  She is dying to know how to read and write.  I'd like to think she's got a bright future as the next Jane Austen or something. 

When we went to Texas in November, I bought her a new DVD called Meet the Sight Words 1.  It was a DVD that helped children learn words that either don't follow phonics and/or they are common and you should know them by sight.  It included words like "it," "and," "the" and "play."  There are probably 20 or so words on the DVD. 

Each word does something.  For the word "and" it's written on a lizard who is trying to catch a fly.  After the video goes through all the words, it has a review and then teaches children how to pick the words out of a sentence.

About a week after we got back, Zoe was reading her Veggie Tales Bible (probably her favorite book) and turned to Song of Solomon.  She got all excited and said, "mom!  There's the word "of" in this book!" 

Shortly before her birthday I found out there are Easy Reader books that go along with the DVD's.  I got her the books to go along with the 1st DVD and I also got her the other DVD's as well (there are a total of 3). 

A couple nights ago we sat down, opened the book "Play It" and she read the entire thing to me. 

She got so excited that she could read that she wanted to read another one.  She read that one to me too.

Every night we've been watching the new DVD's and learning the new words.  She can't wait to read those books too.

If you have a child who is wanting to read, I cannot promote these enough.  They are cute videos that teach the words in a fun way.  The books match the movies and are just as cute.  Plus you get to have story time with your very active child.  Sometimes having just 5 minutes to sit while they read you a story is priceless. 

Pretty soon she's going to know that P-E-T-C-O spells pet store rather than dog food store.