What have we been up to lately in the world of reading and writing!

The last few weeks have flown by with lots of hospital admissions and autumn cleaning at home, in readiness for Christmas, as well as teaching the brood! It has been home for a few days, back in hospital for a few days in an ongoing cycle. Thank goodness for home education in these scenarios! It's amazing, that despite the constant upheaval which has been our life these past six months, the children are making tremendous personal progress in their skills and knowledge. I believe that if you take home education seriously, progression can always take place, no matter the current life scenario.  We have two young girls who are keeping up with their school life despite their mummy and brother disappearing every few days. 

Sophia has massively grown in confidence over the past month, and her reading ability greatly reflects this change in attitude. She is reading for pleasure from the bookshelf which is a joy to witness. She has voluntarily chosen to start the Unicorn Academy series with me, and she is seriously impressing me with her ability. This is not an official lesson, she sits on my lap and we snuggle in under a blanket and read the book together. She reads what she can and I fill in the gaps, it is a fluid read with no pressure or expectation. If she grows tired and yet is still interested I'll take over reading for a few more pages. Sometimes she is in learning mode and will repeat my parts and try to sound out the unfamiliar word first before I help her out. 

She is also reading 9a of Peter and Jane for her official reading book, which she is enjoying at three pages a time. It feels like she has been on this book for ages, but progression is going slower than in the past because she isn't only reading this series now, she's mixing it up with storybooks. I see this as proof of personal progress, she has the confidence to step away from the familiarity of this one series to embrace new characters and stories. My goal is to finish the full set of Peter and Jane off by next August, which is the end of our school year. Sophia has already anxiously asked whether she can still continue reading them for fun at that stage, which I have encouraged. She will just have a new official series to be working on, I'm thinking to offer her the Secret Seven series and introduce some Enid Blyton into the mix. 

I am noticing the flitting between Peter and Jane and the bookshelf and now the Unicorn Academy series too has had a very positive result on her reading ability overall. I am seeing the confidence growing, having a break from 9a, to then returning to it with an increased ability. She is reading the back of food packets and fliers with ease with the words she knows. She voluntarily chooses beloved Paw Patrol books to read to Xander as well which is lovely to see, and shows personal growth in confidence and interest in the acrivity. As I write this in hospital yet again, she has read an old time favourite of 'Snore' to her Daddy. 

Kira reads every word that comes into her line of vison, no matter the context or medium, she especially likes reading subtitles of her favourite shows. She will read from random from the book shelf. I do not have a set reading scheme for her, as she has finished the Usborne First Reader set of 50 books, and her reading ability is that of 12b of Peter and Jane. I steer her towards ability appropriate books, which is for those aged seven, she is comfortably higher than level 4 reading difficulty. When she reads for pleasure she chooses old time favourites which are aged appropriate but do not stretch her. I do not want to make reading a chore for her, as the ability is firmly there, she can read anything. 

My job this year is to promote the love and passion of reading, just nudging her to accept books of the correct ability more readily in lesson time, and enjoy Spot the Dog in her free time. I have stretched this particular beloved series to its absolute limit regarding lessons. She has progressed from talking about the pictures, to reading the story, to pointing out the nouns, adjectives and punctuation on each page, to now writing out the stories within handwriting practice, as well as re reading them constantly to her stuffed animals for fun. 

Xander is currently working through 1b of Peter and Jane. Books however are taking him a while to complete, due to a lack of concentration as a result of his age. He reads once a week formally with me and will complete six pages before he loses focus. In his free time he will often choose a book off the shelf and read it out loud to himself. He can read 90% correctly, and will repeat any word I correct him on. 

Sophia loves writing, I keep the handwriting activities very fluid and dynamic. I do not encourage spending hours tracing over perfectly formed letters and numbers in a wipe clean book. It is unnatural, quite boring frankly, and a sure way of pushing your child away from wanting to pick up a pen. This is an activity I limit to once a week for 15mins. I instead offer a range of fun writing activities to the girls. They copy from favourite books or fliers, make up stories and I dictate to them, have a penpal, write shopping lists, and have weekly spelling tests consisting of 30 words. 

Sophia has a science book where she is writing up her science knowledge, she also works through Peter and Jane C books which are comprehension and handwriting based. I also make up sentences and paragraphs using words the girls already know how to spell. They love this particular exercise as they feel really grown up writing without Mummy's help. Regarding spelling they have learnt a couple of hundred new words already since August and are retaining them, either straight from memory or are able to use phonics and spell them using this method. Sophia loves writing messages to family members on her drawings, so she is writing a lot more in her free time. She has also added a new handwriting practice to the list: Christmas lists! The best kind of list! She can now read through the Lego Catalogue and pick out age appropriate sets, read about them and write down the title and number for us to look through. I have seen great progress in both of the girls handwriting since August already. They work hard at this skill set. 

Kira likes writing a little bit every day, she is learning to hold the pencil properly, and copies from her favourite books or practices writing her upper and lower case and her numbers to 1-30. Her letter forming is greatly improving. Kira also likes to try and figure out how to write complicated words. She isn't always successful, but her latest attempt with the word circle, produced 'cirle' impressed me, she was so close.

Xander is forming circles and straight lines now, and he's trying his hand at forming triangles and rectangles. He likes to form letters holding the pen along with me. It is an area of developmental delay for him, but he is happy with his scribblings and likes the activity. He's switching between his left and right hand still currently, the jury is still out which one is his preferred hand. His left arm and hand is historically stronger than his right which has a weakness in it. He practices on his tablet, tracing letters and numbers frequently and uses his left hand there. He loves playing NumberBlocks and NumberJack's on his tablet too, any games like these are great for brain, eye and hand coordination. While he has been on the hospital ward lately Xander has had a few visits from the story lady who comes round to read to the children individually, which he loves. 

The girls also use their Amazon Fire tablets daily for learning purposes. Sophia's favourite game lately involves the continents and incorporates a lot of hand, eye coordination puzzles which progressively grow harder throughout the levels. 

There is a great game on the Xbox which we have recently brought for the girls called 'Lost Words: Beyond the Page'. It is a fantastic reading game for those children aged 6+ who are familiar with Xbox controls. The girls team up and tackle the game together, Kira can read the entire subtitled dialogue and journal, whilst Sophia has better dexterity with the tricky controller commands. It is a fun, imaginative, interactive game concerning story telling and the meaning behind words.  You collect various words and keep them in a book which your character carries round with them, and then you use the words where they apply within the story. An example is the word 'Rise', whenever your character needs an item or themselves to rise up they use the word from their book to unlock the mechanism. It teaches word repetition, context and meaning, whilst increasing vocabulary knowledge. Kira also thinks it is fun to go and write down the word currently in play by hand as well, whilst Sophia plays the game.