. 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.�
My boy is also an emerging reader. He's about to turn four. Over the past year he has occasionally read a few random sentences. The year before he was reading words. It has been a long slow process. After I saw him read sentences I hoped it would turn into books, but like you said he would see words he didn't know and not want to work through it. What has recently helped is if he sits with me and I read easy readers like Fly Guy and pause to let him read the words I know he knows. I stepped it up by telling him, "can you read to me" while I was busy, explaining that I was too busy to help, but just say "skip" when you see a word you don't know. Some pages are read, "the skip skip skip skip and skip skip skip". Sometimes he reads a few pages without a skip. Next step I sat with him and he reads the book and whenever he says skip I say the word.
You want him to work on listening comprehension too, which is why most kids who learn to read learn from listening to their mothers read. If you're not reading that many books to your kid check out the Junie B Jones or Hank the Cowdog cd's and practice listening.
Also, you listen. Listen and let the kid be captain obvious, retelling the movie you were sitting there watching, or explaining what your husband just told you, even though you were there. Don't be bored or ignore them. That there is future note-taking skills they're working on, so they can listen to a lecture in class and paraphrase it into notes.
Could keep going. I feel like I'm getting an online degree in early childhood education just from being a housewife with 2 small kids.
