Homeschool Reading
Do you fear that you’re dropping the ball? Before you’ve even started? Juggling all the responsibilities of being a mom first, let alone homeschooling your child? Teaching them to read, maybe even for the first time? Back to School season is here and you’re wondering if you have what it takes to teach your child to read?
Today, we’re busting through alphabet blunders to avoid when teaching the alphabet during homeschool reading lessons. And you thought the alphabet was simple. Sure, except for these sneaky sound-symbol or phoneme-grapheme relationships.
Today, we’re going to get right into homeschool reading alphabet blunders to avoid when teaching phonics at home. The letters in question are nasal /a/ and ‘q’, ‘qu’ and x.
First, the short /a/ vowel sound for the letter a is usually one of the first sounds phonics curriculums have your child learn. ‘A’ spells /a/. Simple. But, the letter a also has a short nasal a sound /a/. Short /a/ and nasal /a/ are two very different sounds to hear and say during phonemic awareness practice.
When reading beginning CVC words, which sound should your child use? Think of one-syllable words with a short /a/ or nasal /a/ sound in the middle. What is the pattern for when ‘a’ spells /a’ and the pattern for when ‘a’ spells /a/?
Another homeschool reding alphabet blunder is when we tell our child, “‘Q’ spells /kw/.” In the English language, Q alone does not spell /kw/, but ‘qu’ spells /kw/. Have you ever wondered why don’t we just spell words like ‘quit’ with the letters ‘kwit’?
I think you really need some experience seeing young Language learners apply their knowledge of phonics skills to spell words for which they don’t have cognitive memory built up yet.
For example, during a homeschool reading lesson, have one your children ever spelled the word ‘queen’ as ‘kween’ or ‘quack’ as in a duck’s quacking sound as ‘kwack’.
Of course, knowing about the ck digraph after a short vowel at the end of a word would come in late Kindergarten or early Grade One.
