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So dd3 has decided to teach herself to read. She has rejected any lessons and just wants to use starfall. Any tips fo self taught methods to help here as she will sit at the gosh darn computer all day if i let her. She refuses most stories - we have only just started picture books. We only read non fiction and labelling books ( ie the ones with photos and names of items). We have the leap frog letters and a set of flash cards as well but she is not interested in those. She does ask for activities to practise her writing though.

It was really hard for me at times to sit back and let DD figure it out on her own but her father wanted us to respect her autonomy and give her the confidence that comes from having learned to read independently at a young age.

I don't say this very often but he was right and it worked out well for her. When children are engaged, they are learning so for now, maybe Starfall is what she needs and as long as she adheres to a reasonable daily limit, all is good?

Yep I think you are spot on. I guess I was worried I wasn't providing the "right" learning environment. Is it even self taught f a program is used? I always thought self taught was kids just picking it up frill signs and daily life....

My DD4 taught herself to read using starfall at 2/3 as well. She was like your daughter, she would want to sit at the computer for hours and it was a battle to get her away from it. She also didn't want my help, as with most things. So I had no hand in her learning any of the sounds. She was not a fan of flash cards either.

She was very big on environmental print (labels/signage/letterhead) and would point out every sign word she knew. If your DD likes games you can make it into a game. Ask her which sound she's learned and then tell her to let you know anytime she comes across a word that begins with T or that sound during the day. That way she's in control of it. My DD likes tests and quizzes so when we went to the grocery store we'd ask her to find 5 R's. She'd find them and ask for another task. We also had a set of sight readers. At first she "read" them to us by interpreting the pictures. Shortly after she had them all memorized by herself and then she began reading them on her own.

So, Starfall really works and if she's interested in it I'd let her do it with a reasonable limit as PP mentioned. Other then asking her what she learned and asking her to demonstrate that we didn't have to do any formal teaching of how to read.

My boys both made their own books...lots of paper, markers, crayons, stickers, stamps, staplers, construction paper...and they used writing as a way to learn how to read.

One of my boys would pick a category and make a book on that category...Toys or Animals or Vehicles for example might have been the topic...then he would draw (or sometimes ask me to draw a specific item for him to color in), color, then yell from the other room where he was working "how do you spell _______?" for the hard ones like coyote or jaguar but he would work out easy ones for him self. Then he would read his book to me and then show it off to his dad and read it to him.

Later on I would make story books using a story of something that happened to him and he would illustrate it (or we might illustrate it together). He loved those because they were actual stories with him as the main character and we made them really silly and exaggerated. I remember one about a camping trip and how he, his brother, and dad came home dirty and one about how his dad went to work with his one pair of shoes in the car and he had to wear an old pair of his brother's shoes to preschool that looked like clown shoes until I could get his shoes out of my husband's car at work and bring them to him. He loved that one.

Around their fourth birthday, I checked to see if my kids understood the concept of blending letter sounds to make words and they did. The public library had an audio version of the BOB books. DD loved that and listened to the first set over and over again in her room. We did maybe one other set of BOB books and then she was able to read easy reader books pretty easily. By the time she started K she was reading second-third grade level stuff and now in third she is a very fast, fluent reader.
DS never seemed as interested and I just kind of left him alone. I did do one or two sets of BOB books with him and occasionally tried to get him to read a Level 2 easy reader book. Despite hardly ever reading and having almost no interest, he somehow learned extremely fast and was reading second-third grade level stuff pretty fluently by the time K started. He is a master of phonics--can decode just about anything, even words that he's never seen or heard before. And he's very good at spelling. DD didn't pick up on the phonics/spelling quite as easily and seemed to do more memorization of words than DS did.
Each kid is so different and it's good to let them take the lead. I liked the BOB books, at least introducing the first set of them but there are plenty of similar easy phonics books you can get. I tried Starfall once of twice but the kids weren't really into it.

One of my twins was determined to teach himself to read at age 5, before kindergarten. He didn't want any help at all, and would stop reading if we tried to help him. He taught himself to read using the Bob books. He did have a good grasp of phonics, though, so he was able to sound out the words. Starfall is a good site, and so is readingeggs.com.


The other twin learned to read at 3. He would ask for help when he couldn't read a word, but he also benefited from the bob books.

I am following this thread with keen interest. DD4 has known all her letter sounds for a year now. Not sure how she learnt them as we do not allow screen time expect 1/2 hour a week on PBS and we have not done flash cards or anything like that. She might have picked them up at her Montessori preschool she attended from age 3-4, even though her teacher there was equally surprised that DD knew all the sounds. She can read phonetic words. She has been spelling phonetically and writing for about an year now as well. However, she has shown no interest in taking it any further and reading books. She claims that the easy readers like BOB and Biscuit books are too boring and the interesting books are too hard. So, for now,I just read to her. (I am reading Adventures of Alice in Wonderland to her now and she loves the book). I am hoping she just picks up a good book one day and starts to read. Not sure how much longer that is going to take. In fact, she fails to recognize even simple words that she has read a million times and reads it phonetically every.single.time. Something just hasn't clicked yet but hopefully, when it clicks, it will progress quickly. In the homeschool, I have moveable alphabets, what's a Gnu, and word tiles for sentence building for her use. She loves the game where I put about 6-8 different objects in a bowl, spell the object names on a rug using moveable alphabets and she then matches the words and the objects. Since she can usually match without having to read the whole word, she feels good about it. She still gets to see how longer words like triangle or binoculars look.

DS2 was obsessed with Starfall when he was learning his letter sounds, and now he likes the little phonetic readers and build-a-word programs in the extended subscription.

A series of leveled phonetic readers that we enjoy is called, "Now I'm Reading". They have full colour pictures that lend themselves to extending the basic storyline. We decode the text with DS and then elaborate on the stories to make them more interesting.

http://www.innovativekids.com/shop/230/learn-to-read-books

Another activity that DS likes is drawing a picture or modelling a statue out of play dough and labeling the item, either with paper labels that I write or magnetic letters.

We also walk around the neighbourhood identifying items the first and last sounds in the words. It's a fun game with the bonus that it builds phonemic awareness and finding skills. We do a version of I-Spy on our neighbourhood walks where we give two clues, one of which is the first letter of the word.

I draw sheets of simple pictures and have him write out all or part of the corresponding word with magnetic letters. This is a prime way I've introduced word families and rhyming.

Another fun game is to place magnetic letters in a jar and draw them at random. Then, think of a word that starts or ends in that letter. We often make up songs that incorporate the words.

An alternative is to pick a theme, like trucks or dinosaurs, and run through the alphabet from start to finish thinking of an item in the class that corresponds to each letter. I'll write out the words or help DS type them on the computer. You might be surprised how well your LO can spell simply by sounding out the word slowly. I sure was! If you blank for a letter, make a new item up, act it out or paint it, etc.

I'd also try to keep up the pleasure reading as much as possible. IMO, everything should be secondary to developing a love of reading. You might like some books by Aliki or other authors in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out series, which layer plots over non-fiction topics. Those books might serve as a gateway to greater enjoyment of fiction.

Also, just a though, but how advanced is the fiction you're covering? I find DS loses interest in fiction first when his comprehension jumps. You might want to try some longer stories, like Paddington Bear or James Herriot's animal tales, to see if a little more richness in plot does the trick.

My advice, at 3, is to follow her lead wherever it takes her (while limiting computer time as you feel appropriate lol!). You mentioned that she "refuses most stories" - do you mean she's refusing to try reading stories herself, or she's impatient and doesn't want to listen to you? I was told by countless teachers etc (whom I respect) that the most important thing to do when children are young is to read to them (just as important as having them practicing reading on their own). If she's refusing to try to read on her own, don't worry with it or bother with it right now. If she's bored with stories you're reading to her, try reading more "bigger" books - books with more complicated story lines etc. Maybe read her something that you loved as a child when you were reading yourself - this is just an example picked out of thin air, but for example, if you loved Little House on the Prairie books, try reading the first one to her. My girls also loved the series of books about young girls that's published by American Girl, and my kids loved listening to the "Golden Classics" when they were around 3.

You also mentioned your dd likes writing activities - go with that! Our kids' preschool firmly believed that writing is a precursor to reading developmentally. I don't know if there's any truth to it, but most of the kids that I knew at the preschool followed that path (self-led) and most went on to early or more advanced reading before they were in kindergarten.

Most importantly, just let her have fun and enjoy her - the preschool years go by soooooo so very quickly!

Best wishes,

polarbear