This is such a great idea! I read this thread this morning, and I decided to try it with my 4-year-old. She's been attending a preschool for high ability kids, and her teachers are working with each child on phonics. Oddly (to me anyway), there didn't seem to be much sequential progression in the instruction - she would come home every day with a different phonics rule to memorize. It was just too much for her, and she just wasn't getting it. She grew to hate it whenever I'd suggest we'd practice reading, and she finally told me, "Mom, I HATE reading. I never want to learn to read." Yikes.
We backed off for awhile, but I started thinking maybe she wasn't as high as I thought - I'd always heard that HG kids start reading very early. We had her tested and confirmed that she's gifted, but we've really backed off on the reading thing because it seemed to cause so much frustration. THEN I read this "Word Wall" idea, and we tried it today. Hooray! She's nuts about it - all it took was taping 6 names of our family members and a few other sight words (the, is, etc.) to her closet doors, and she is adding to the list exponentially. I had no idea she knew that many words, but apparently she's been so stuck on sounding everything out that she hasn't focused on what works for her. Once I explained that adults don't sound everything out when they read - that most of our reading is done by "sight", she got really excited. Even later on in the day at the grocery store, she said, "Mom, we have to hurry up and get home so I can add more words to my Word Wall!"
So anyway, thanks a bunch for the idea - we have one happy 4-year-old sleeping in front of her Word Wall tonight....
