I realized recently that my 3-year-old is learning to read by simply memorizing words, rather than sounding them out or decoding them phonetically. When he was two, I thought this was fantastic -- but now I�m a
little worried about it crippling his understanding of phonics down the road when such a thing will be important.
He�s been able to recognize a large collection of multi-syllable (2-10 letter) words instantaneously for quite a while now and has memorized the sounds that letter combinations make like CH, SH, and TH, as well as double letters like EE, and OO, for instance - but he doesn�t seem to really grasp the idea of sounding words out yet.
I�m pre-schooling him from home, and learning to read is a big part of our plan for the year. I�m wondering if I should play into the memorization aspect, or really push phonics more. With him only being 3, do you think it will simply click with time? Not being able to sound words out is the only thing tripping him up from being able to read actual stories on his own. He does well with most sentences, but if he comes across even one very short word he doesn�t recognize (like the name SAM, for instance), he closes the book and says �I don�t know these words, Mommy.�
Clearly I don't want to push him too hard. I realize he's only three... But I'm wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences with their early readers. (I'm new to the community, and very excited to have found this forum, btw!
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