My First Reading Lesson Or Eat Your Words

"Exercises treated as a game, which yet teach the powers of the letters, will be better to begin with than actual sentences. Take up two of his letters and make a syllable 'at'; tell him it is the word we use when we say 'at home'...Then put a b to 'at' -bat; c to 'at' -cat; fat, hat, mat, sat, rat and so on...Let the syllables all be actual words which he knows...the child will learn to read off dozens of words of three letters and will master the short-vowel sounds with initial and final consonants without effort...Do not hurry him."

-Charlotte Mason, Home Education, Vol.1, p.202

Open up a couple of packs of Letter Bites Fruit Snacks...or similar letter snacks, such as alphabet cookies,

and have fun with building words.

Just ask him if he can spell any word. If he can, then tell he can also spell other words like them, and name a word that rhymes/is spelled like the first word and ask him to spell that word. Your confidence that he can do it can go a long way to his own confidence in spelling.

"If you can spell bat, then you can spell cat...

or sat."

Then ask if he can spell another word. If he can, keep playing like you have been. If he can't, then give him a starting word... and have him build new words off this new word. Dog can become fog, log and hog.

Keep playing as long as your child hold interest in it. Then he can have a snack for all his work.