Educating Risa

Gareth has been “doing homeschool” from a series of Evan Moor workbooks on word families. Here he is hard at work on the “-it family” (bit, sit, fit, etc.):

The series we are using is Word Family Stories and Activities; we’re currently about halfway through Level A (Canada) (US). Each word family contains various simple exercises (matching words to pictures, fill in the blank, etc.) and a short story, and they are pitched at just the right level for Gareth at this time:

Gareth’s favourite part, though, is the cut-out word slider included at the end of each word family. At this level, most of the 10 or so words on the slider are C-V-C (consonant-vowel-consonant), but a few blends or unusual words (e.g., knit) are sometimes included:

Here’s the sliders from all the word families we’ve done so far. Gareth is soooo pleased with himself with all the words he can now read. He likes to read them to Dad in the evening:

Do I think this is necessary to teach Gareth to read? No, not really. There are many ways to learn to read, and I think the most important part is being read to regularly, a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction, so as to instil a love of books and reading. But I see no harm in this activity. He is freely choosing to do it; he loves having some seatwork for homeschool “just like Daegan”; and it is helping him see patterns in words—and I am a huge fan of seeing patterns in things (words, math, science, art, nature, etc). Here, we “offer, but don’t force” learning opportunities on our kids. IMNSHO, there is no point in “forcing” him to learn to read, but him hating the process and hence hating to read. That’s winning the battle but losing the war.

Do you think he’s feeling good about himself and this activity?