Reading...BEFORE Kindergarten!

When I was starting my preschool, I was constantly thinking about which reading program I wanted to use in my classroom. As a brand new school, I knew that I wanted it to be good!

Anita, a great friend of mine who runs The Learning Turtle Preschool here in Smithfield (www.learningturtle.com ), told me about an amazing program that she found. As it turns out, the author of this program lives right here in Smithfield as well, so we went to visit her to learn all about her program.

Folks, this program is LEGIT. Holy cow! Okay, so the author is Doreese Severe and her program is called SeeABCs (Seeabcs.com). She is a genius. Seriously!

You know how an Ss looks like a snake and sounds like a snake? Well, she figured out a way to make ALL the letters look

like an object that starts with each letter. For instance, 'Rr' looks like a Rock slide and rabbit, 'a' is apple, 'g' is girl, 'e' is an elephant, etc.

As soon as I saw this program in person, I knew right away that this is the program that I wanted to use for my own children AND Magnolia Academy. As a parent, I feel that if having my child read before kindergarten is my goal, it is MY responsibility (not the preschool teachers) to teach my child how to read. Luckily for me, I am both the parent and teacher to my children, so I bought the program ASAP and started working with my oldest two children right away.

My five year old already knew his letters and most of the sounds, so we skipped the handwriting/letter learning books and went right to the beginning reading book. I taught him how to read the sounds "choppy" by saying each letter's sound individually. Like in Rag: /R/ /a/ /g/

And then I taught him how to use the lines under each letter to help him read the sounds smoothly.

He picked up on this so quickly that by the second page of reading, he was reading each word choppy once and then right to smooth without needing all of the other steps! The way that Doreese laid this book out is just so perfect. We have now moved through the first 3 sections of the beginning reading book. Here is a video of my kiddo reading... in the first week of our reading sessions. THE. FIRST.WEEK! I'm so proud of this kid!

Not only has he learned how to read, but he is learning WHY certain letters make certain sounds. Like, WHY Ee can say 'eh' or its own name, 'e'. And the best part is that he is really enjoying it! He LOVES to sit down with me to read, and we do it everyday.

Tonight, I read him the book, Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman and we practiced reading by letting him read all of the words that he could. (Some of the words he hasn't learned the rules for yet, so I helped him on those). This program is amazing. Seriously! As a parent it tugs at my heartstrings to see my little boy learning how to read so quickly. As a teacher, well, it does the same thing. I love LOVE books, and I really want to instill a love for reading in my own children AND my preschool students. This program has certainly helped already!

Now, with my 2 1/2 year old, I have been using Doreese's "ABC's See What They Say" book and she is picking it up really fast. I wish I had a video of her, too. I'll have to add one at a later date.

I am so excited to implement this program into my existing preschool lessons! SeeABCs is a well thought out and easy to use program that really helps children to see the sounds that each letter makes.

For those of you who have already registered your preschooler at Magnolia Academy: I have purchased this whole program. So, no matter where your child is in the reading process, they will benefit from this program. If you have any questions about it, feel free to use the "Contact me" page or email me at Magnolia.Academy.Preschool@gmail.com. Current parents, feel free to call or text me if you have any questions!

#preschool #reading #SeeABCs