These were her first “formal” lessons. Naturally when we move beyond play to didactic lessons friction arises. I really appreciated that the early lessons are very short. You can do them in minutes. To sweeten the lessons and ease the transition to formal lessons we started to call it the “jelly bean book.” After we finished a lesson we celebrated with a jelly bean as a prize. It never matters how much of a lesson we completed or how well she did- every time she got a jelly bean. It didn’t take long before she was asking for her lessons.
The jellybeans were a helpful tool to make that transition but it’s not long before your little will be reading. At that point the thrill is more from the ability to read than wanting a jellybean. Most days she would forget all about it.
As you move further in the book it’s important to remember that completing a lesson isn’t the goal as much a full understanding is. As we got to lessons 50+ we would frequently repeat lessons 2-3 times. Also as lessons included bigger stories or longer phonics practice I would set a timer for 15 minutes and when it went off- no matter where we are- we stop.
2 Comments
Heather
February 21, 2020 at 9:24 amI have this book book but I didn’t use it with my older two and was just thinking about starting it with my four year old- this was so helpful! Thank you 🙂
Judith
August 7, 2020 at 3:36 pmMy sister in law just told me about this book this week! I put the book on hold at our library but now reading this, i probably need to purchase it.