Because of the kidlet’s early history (he is adopted, was badly neglected the first six months of his life, and was very delayed), we did our own version of homeschooling from the time he was very little.  At first we worked with an early head start program; after the adoption was final we didn’t qualify for that (too much income), so we just worked at home at improving the skills and developing new skills.

When he entered the preschool age, we created an “Alphabet Book” using a large 3 ring binder, dividers and those plastic page protector things that you can slip your standard size paper into.  In that we collected his preschool work that was alphabet driven, as well as the projects that we continued to do at home to enrich him academically.

One of the projects we did for our letter of the week was a picture collage.  I’ve collected pictures from magazines, snail mail ads, old books that were too torn up to keep around, clip art I’ve printed, stickers, etc.  I keep them in a large manilla envellope (which I admit isn’t the best solution.  I keep thinking I need to get an expandable file thing or something so I can sort them better, but alas, this hasn’t happened).  Each week I’d go through and pick out a number of words that begin with the correct sound along with a few that didn’t.  Then I’d have the kidlet try and find pictures that begin with the letter of the week and glue them down onto a piece of paper for his letter book.

As he got older and better at it, I’d throw in some tricky ones (like putting a picture of some eyes in with the “I” words that week, for instance).  We also would go back to older ones and make sure he remembered what letter the collage was showing. 

As we finished them up, and he is easily identifying letters by sound, I’d have him select one picture from a collage page, draw his own version, and then try and write out the word, sounding out the letters.

I’m *really* glad that this is something that we focused on.  I am amazed at how many children in his Kindergarten class can receite the alphabet, but have no idea what sounds letters make.  Since they are focusing on “Kid Writing” – where the child writes words without adult assistance, using the letters that they hear in the word (ie, school gets written a lot like “skool” or “skol”), not knowing those sounds really puts those children at a disadvantage, as they have to learn that before they can develop thier writing and spelling skills.

This post is linked to Kid Friendly Friday at I Blame my Mother.

Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump, Cooking, Kidlet & Baby L