We did very little formally in this category by design and it went well. Big Brother wrote letters and made cards throughout the year to practice writing and spelling. At the end of the “school” year Big Brother started writing his poem for his poem memorization he’s required to do for violin class and these poem memorizations were also considered part of his LA. Most of the year, I had Big Brother read a story to Cisco and me every morning then we got away from it. For awhile he didn’t read much. Then he started reading to himself for his own pleasure (he particularly loves reading the Bionicle books I resfused to read him). At that point, his reading skills began to really take off. I always want to have a daily reading time where I read a book but we always seem to have little time. We read through half of “Wind in the Willow” and all of the first “Harry Potter” (we were both obsessed with reading this one and got it read in about 2 weeks in the Spring). I also read on topics associated with our history and science lessons.
Next year, I would like to do better with having him read to me each day and me read to him. One of our new features in our house is a reading nook. So far, Big Brother considers it a great excuse to read. For a little more formal LA, we will be adding Primary Language Lessons. A gentle approach to language arts. It is like “First Language Lessons” (from the author of “The Well trained Mind”) light and is considered Charlotte Mason friendly. Includes copy work, stories and poems with a dash of grammar.
The Reading Nook