Practicing Reading

One of the ways that we practice our reading, and build on our phonics skills is to use our Fisher Price Magnetic Doodle Pad.

Selena and I will spend hours playing with her doodle pad. I start out by just writing random words, some she knows and some she doesn’t know, easy words to complex words. It is up to Selena to tell me what I wrote. The words she doesn’t know, she isn’t allowed to just guess at she has to sound them out. Many times she surprises herself and gets them the first try, but since I throw in a lot of different letter blends, it might take her a couple of attempts. Sometimes I do have to give her hints, when this happens, I write a new word using the same letter blends to see if she remembers what sound we just made.

After we have done this for a while, I start writing sentences, from simple sentences to complex sentences. Selena then has to read the sentences to me. I may or may not use many of the words we just practiced, and many times I will throw in new words into our sentences.

Selena loves this activity, I think more then just sitting down and reading books with us. She still does read a lot of books, but I think this is a fun and very important learning tool. It is not only introducing her to how to use her phonics skills, reading skills, but also recognizing the written word, not just typed word.

Of course what would playing on the doodle pad be without truly just sitting back and doodling, she will doodle, I will doodle, we draw all sorts of pictures, play tic tac toe, hangman. I don’t think I have mentioned Selena’s newest favorite game is hangman. She isn’t too bad at the game either.

We do love our doodle pad!