I Can Teach My Child to Read!

There are not enough words to say how much I love this book. I didn't start homeschooling my oldest son until second grade because I wanted him to learn to read. I wasn't patient enough to teach him myself. I'd tried to start teaching him when he was preschool and it was a miserable failure. He was frustrated, I was frustrated, and no learning was going on. So I decided to send him to public school.

Imagine my apprehension when my 5-year-old (who is not in kindergarten yet because is birthday is 2 days past the cutoff *grr*) decided that he doesn't want to go to school next year. He wants to have school at home like his older brother.

Well... I certainly didn't know what to say to that. I mean, I didn't want my impatience to impede his learning to read.

Well, it turns out I was doing it wrong. That's why my oldest and I were both getting so frustrated.

I "liked" I Can Teach My Child on Facebook (they provide excellent ideas and resources for homeschooling), and I saw that they had written an ebook called I Can Teach My Child to Read!

I was skeptical when I purchased the Kindle version (at the link above, there's a .pdf version). After all, I had read several books on reading and I even bought the expensive curriculum for my oldest. Nothing I tried worked.

It's because everything I'd read and everything I'd tried were wrong.

This book has so many ideas, tips and tricks to teach your child to read! Before, I had learned that reading was the ultimate goal. But, according to the author, Jenae Jacobson, "comprehension and enjoyment" are the ultimate goal.

Of course, I knew that comprehension and enjoyment are important, but I thought they came naturally when reading was accomplished. But no! According to this book, teaching comprehension and enjoyment is as important as teaching what the words say. The book also teaches you how to teach your child how to make a mental picture of what's going on so that when they progress to less picture-heavy chapter books, they can imagine what's going on as they read.

After each chapter I was so excited to begin that I wanted to put the book down and start. But I did read the book to the end (in one sitting, by the way - this is a very easy to read and understand book). And I'm glad I did. I feel much better equipped to teach my 5-year-old to read than ever before. And I will keep updating his progress in this blog. :)

**Note: Nowhere in this book does it say "everything you've been doing so far is wrong." I decided all by myself that I was doing everything wrong. lol!