Pre-school Online Reading Programs - Spells HELP

I have an elementary education certification, but right now I'm staying at home with my son. Please please don't freak out about doing all this at the age of 4! Kindergarten is where they learn their letters and numbers and begin literacy. Identifying letters already is huge! All you need to do is sit and read with him, or maybe do computer programs like Dora the Explorer and whatever her boy cousin's name is. Let your child be a child. Pre-school is more for introducing routines and socialization than pushing formal learning. What will be MORE beneficial for your son than hooked on phonics will be trips to the park, zoo, doing craft projects, working alongside you in the garden, and looking at books with you.

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I second starfall.com. A great site with everything from toddler to preschool type stuff. Plus, it is free!

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I know you are getting lots of websites and here's one more... www.preschooltimeonline.com it's $10 a month and it's from Disney. My son is two and begs to play with Bear every day. They have guided and unguided lessons and they teach all early learning skills. My son is already identifing letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. The lessons are bright and colorful and have all the favorite playhouse disney characters. You get seven lessons a week and each week has a new theme. The themes can run the gammet from making friends to staying healthy. They mix in a stretching exercise from Jojo's Circus too. It has been the best thing i could do for my son. He has even learned to identify his name and even use the mouse all by himself. they make the lessons are so much fun he will do all seven lessons in one day! It only takes about an hour to do them all, and he gets more out of them by repeating the same ones several times. you can always go back to past lessons too. I can't rave about it enough. I literally have to pull my son away from it. And if you need more proof of how well it works... my son just turned two in April.

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We homeschool and are using the book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Before we started that book, we learned sounds and letters. This is a book several of my homeschool friends use and love, and I don't think your child needs to know his sounds to start the book.
I'll check my bookmarks and see if I have helpful websites that would be fun for him and you.

This one looks fun...here you go..

http://www.starfall.com/

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Hi M.,
My 6 year old son started Kindergarten this year. The teacher said that the best thing we could do for him and our next 3 kids that I have no intention of sending them to preschool is read to them.

My son has to know how to write his first and last name, address, telephone number, count from 1-100, know all capital and lower case letters, write all the letters in correct form, and know all of their sounds, in addition to sight words which are words such as: we, are, is, have, her, his, she, he, and etc. Also all color words by sight and identify each color. Along with shapes and he has these little books he has to read everynight.

You need to teach him to recognize the letters first, capital and lowercase. You obviously have a computer so go to whatever word program you have and make all the letters and print them out, do the numbers, do the color words in the colors they are. I think you would be better off doing it this way than buying a program. And have a little more fun doing it.

Here is a list of the sight words : a, the, I, in, is, me, to, my, and, go, we, it, you, like, can, of, has, from, said, all, have, for, with, was, see, that, are, do, he and she.
The color words are red, blue, green, yellow, orange, brown, black, white, gray, pink and purple.

As for your patience they will come in time. You just have to find your "groove". Goodluck and have fun, W.

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starfall.com is free and has an excellent reading/phonics program.

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I bought a condensed version of hooked on phonics at Sams Club for about $30 my daughter who is five now loved it and it really helped her reading. It does take time and patience on the parents behalf to sit and listen to all the tapes with your child. She loved the computer game that came with it. She went from being unable to read anything more than 2 letter words to reading on a second semester 1st grade level within about 3 months. Good Luck

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Hi,
His preschool teacher turned us on to Starfall.com. He is 6 now and still uses the site. Its great.

K.

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Try www.starfall.com They have different levels and teach the sounds and the capital and lower case letters. The higher levels have rhyming words and such. Very good website.

M.

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My son is also 4 years old and knows his abc's and how to write his name. How I taught him to identify letters is just by reading different books and asking him to identify letters. We are now identifying letters and working on sounds. I have heard that the phonics is worth it but I found this way to work too. I think if you just keep working with him, you will see a difference by the end of summer and then when he starts school you will see another change. It is amazing watching them learn new things and how they are so proud of themselves.

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I know reading out loud to them is a really good thing. I got told by an retired teacher I met that even as young as my 7mos old son, it will benefit. Point to the pics as I say the words. They'll pick up on the words as they get older. Also, it's good for my 3,4,6 yr old girls. So I'd say just read to him. My 6yr old did reading this year in kindergarten. So she's reading books great now.

But just make sure that you never push him into too much. Keep his curiosity alive, but don't do so much he eventually becomes bored. I say this as one of those kids. I was always wanting to learn. When I was in kindergarten I wanted to learn so much I was doing my sister's 3rd grade homework with her. But as I got older I just got bored and sick of school. There wasn't enough challenging things for me in later grade school, jr high, etc. I just flew through stuff, if I did it at all because to me it was too petty to do. Which is not the view you want on school. So I'm glad to be back in college and doing advanced classes helps with that. So just try to set a limit on how much you let him jump ahead in the future. I know it'll be hard, but believe me it's for the best. Just do enough to keep the fire of learning alive in him, but not enough to make him be bored in school because he's more advanced than the rest of the class.

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As an educator the best thing you can do for your son is to read to him. He is only going into preschool not kindergarten. Preschoolers are not supposed to know how to read just yet. If you are wanting him to identify letters in words then you need to just sit down with a book and starting reading!

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Hi M.,

Have you checked your local library before getting into the expense? They have tons of learning dvd's that you can use in your computer, leap frog is pretty good and fun! My daughter loved it! It is something fun to do for the summer, and it doesn't cost a bit. Since I am a stay home mom I am always checking for good stuff to do with my kids at home. specially during the summer months.
Hope it helps,

M.

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PBSkids.org has a lot of tools on it and plenty of games he can play on his own that focus on reading. All of it is free. If you decide you want to buy something to help him out, try the Little Leap (Leapster) series. They work a lot on letter sounds and sounding out words through songs. My son has several of those toys and books, but got the most help from the refridgerator magnet set that plays the letter's sound with a catchy tune. He also loves his stuffed Little Leap (the one with the alphabet on his stomach).

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My kids use leapster, Nick Jr shows, and Playhouse Disney ($10/mo). My 2 yr old son can write his nickname (JJ) and my daughter can write a lot more. I can't they would have to know much more than their name. That is all my stepson had to know. My daughter is also in preschool (3 days a week in the afternoon starting in the fall - was in a different program this past spring) and will be starting kindergarten in the fall of '08.

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I am a preschool teacher and i swear by the leapfrog dvds they have 4 start with the letter factory and it goes from there you can buy them at walmart. as a online suggestion there are lots of free resources one is www.starfall.com also www.pbskids.com is a good one if you need any thing else let me know. good luck!

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I wouldn't spend the money on the hooked on phonics program, I bought it for my son because he was the same as you mentioned, very eager to learn. I ended up sending the program back and getting my money returned, for the cost it is not worth it. My son was a sponge and just picked things up from being read to or also the games the others have mentions, leap pad was a great tool for him to use.

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If you would like to purchase programs to help your son IPA is a great store. It is an education store. They just opened a new store off of Republic Rd. The staff is extremely helpful and can direct you the computer program that will be most beneficial.

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starfall.com Great site.... my kids love it!

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We found that Scolastic puts out an interactive computer CD with Clifford. It is specifically geared towards 4 to 6 year olds.

There is one called learning activities and one for reading. My 4 year old daughter loves them. We found some new CD's on ebay for around $8.00 each. I think they are around $25 in the stores. If you type in the search field on ebay "Clifford the big red dog learning activities" you may find them. We only let our daughter spend an hour on these games a day. I don't want her to get too hooked. She also has to earn the time spent on the computer by having her teeth brushed, PJ's on etc before she can play.

Good luck! Hope your son find these CD's enjoyable and a great learning tool like our daughter did.

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You might try a website called www.bookadventure.com. I have cut and pasted the into for you:
"Book Adventure is a FREE reading motivation program for children in grades K-8. Children create their own book lists from over 7,000 recommended titles, take multiple choice quizzes on the books they've read, and earn points and prizes for their literary successes. Book Adventure was created by and is maintained by Sylvan Learning."

It might be a little advanced for your little one, but my boys just loved it. I really liked it once they got a little older and I could actually see that they were comprehending what they read. We also used the Jumpstart computer games. Their absolute favorite was Jumpstart First Grade. It made learning so much fun!

Good luck.

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Another suggestion if you don't mind him watching a dvd - the Leap Frog dvd about letter sounds helps them learn the sounds very quickly. I found it at Toys R Us.

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I agree with Melissa S. Every parent wants their child to do well and excel, but the best thing you can do for him right now is to make the most of your time together playing and bonding. I wouldn't worry about the formal education and getting him to learn his letters. There is plenty of time for that when he starts school. Just let him pick out books that he enjoys and read to him. Children learn the best through play. If he is a curious child and asks a lot of questions, then use your patience and try to answer as many of them as you can. All you can do is nurture his interests. Let him have a fun summer of swimming, collecting bugs, and doing whatever else his heart desires!

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