Getting ready for kindergarten

by Laura
(USA)

When my son was 2 ½ years old he watched the Leapfrog Letter Sounds video. The next morning he started singing the song that goes with each letter. We were leaving for the day and it was early on a spring morning. I had dew on my car. So I took the opportunity to test him on his letter sounds. I went through the entire alphabet outlining the letters on the window of my car in the dew. He only missed 2 letters. I was amazed. He only watched this 45 minute video once on the afternoon before. I couldn’t believe it.

At this point I knew he was ready to start getting ready for kindergarten. I used the Montessori learning system to teach him how to put words together from the moveable alphabet. Within a couple of weeks my son was putting together 3 letter CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words using all 5 of the major vowels, a-e-i-o-u.

We were on a roll. Next, I exposed him to rhyming cards. The cards I used had, for example, a picture of a fox on the front with the word fox. On the back it had several words that rhymed with fox. So I showed him the picture of the fox and then I showed him the letters f-o-x. Then I gave him an example of a word that rhymes with fox. Then I asked him to name words that rhymed with fox. After a few days he was able to tell me most of the words on the back of the cards along with some words that he came up with himself.

At this point, I took his attention back to the alphabet. I gave him a word from the rhyming cards and asked him to spell words that rhymed. His vocabulary and spelling skills flourished.

I highly recommend the LeapFrog learning videos. They are a wonderful start for learning how to read.