Getting Creative

As I mentioned before, I am a mom to five boys. My two oldest are five and three.  I always find myself trying to manage how I'm going to work with them at the same time and still be effective.  My five year old is an emergent reader and he is working on reading sight words and word families nightly.  My three year old is working on letter formation, letter recognition and letter sounds, BUT must of the time he just wants to do what his big brother is doing. You can probably imagine that it sometimes becomes a challenge to work with both of them at the same time.

I recently created sight word readers for my oldest that include sight words and CVC words.  And though my initial purpose was for my oldest to practice reading and gain fluency, I also wanted him to practice writing his sight words. Each mini book focuses on a particular sight word and has two versions...one where you trace the sight word and one where you write the sight word in the blank. This had become great for getting the reading and writing practice that I was looking for.

Tonight while we were working with our "look" mini reader, it clicked...aha...I can use the tracing version with my three year old, while I use the more independent version where you write the sight word with my oldest.

IT WAS A HIT!!! My three year old was thrilled that we was working on the same thing that his older brother was working on.  He was so happy to be tracing his letters.  I took it a step further by asking him to say the name of each letter as he was tracing it. My oldest was happy writing and spelling aloud the sight word and then reading his mini book to me...and dad and his younger brothers.  It was a very effective lesson for everyone!