Reading Lesson

Andrew’s First Reading Lesson

1. I asked Andrew what word he would like to know how to read. (CM would have chosen a poem and used the first line. I am sure we will do this next but for now I just wanted to see if Andrew was ready to learn to read.) Andrew’s reply was the word “ball”. I made up the sentence “Eli has a ball.”
2. I wrote each word on a card. I showed Andrew the words in a random order. When I showed him the word, I asked him the letters in the words and if he knew the sounds of each letter. I read the word and then sounded it out. However, I did not spend a lot of time on the phonics part.
3. I gave Andrew the cards one at a time for him to study. I told him to look at the word, then close his eyes and picture the word on the card.
4. After we went over each word, I gave him his letter tiles. I asked him to spell each word with the letter tiles.
5. Once he spelled them with the letter tiles, I showed him the cards again. This time, I asked him to make the sentence “Eli has a ball.”
6. Then, he read me the sentence without help.
7. This entire lesson lasted 15 minutes.



Second Reading Lesson (Spelling)

Before I explain this lesson, I will say that I thought that Andrew probably memorized the sentence from yesterday. Therefore, I did not expect him to be able to spell the words without some help from me.

1. I gave Andrew the letter tiles and asked him to spell each word that I called out. I called out the words from yesterday in a random order. He only had trouble with the word “has”. He put the “h” and then “s” letter tile down. I asked him to close his eyes and see if he could remember the word on the card from yesterday. He smiled and quickly put the “a” in the right place.
2. Next, I asked him to make the sentence from yesterday. I did not tell him the sentence. He put all the words in the correct order.
3. After rejoicing together, I gave him his writing tablet. I asked him to write each word that I called out. Again, I did this in a random order. Then I asked him to write the sentence “Eli has a ball”.
4. Once he completed his writing, we talked about the word “ball”. I showed him the word “all” inside of “ball”. Then, we made the words “hall, call, fall, tall, and mall”. We also talked about “has” and “as”.

This may not have been an exact Charlotte Mason reading lesson. I will have to say that within 3 days Andrew could read and spell 10 words. I am completely amazed. Now, I am looking for a poem for him to read. I am going to research more on the Charlotte Mason approach to reading and try to improve our lessons.