Early Sight Words

My 4 year old son C started to practice sight words because he sees his 6 year old big sister E doing them for school. He is stuck at home for the most part because of a small fracture in his foot. Also, he genuinely likes to learn and is very curious about all kinds of things very similar to how I was as a little kid.

C ended up spending some time doing that and also trying to figure out how to learn how to read. He can sound out a decent number of words and through context clues, he can also figure out the sentences (especially for the books he is familiar with). It helps to have an older sibling so you can learn through osmosis.

I think C is also motivated to learn because he likes to know he is doing well at something. This is a recent thought of mine. I hypothesize this is part of the reason because sometimes if we are saying something good about one person, C starts to feel like he isn’t doing anything well. For instance, we told E how proud we were of her dance performance and C was feeling because we didn’t praise him for something. Telling C he is amazing and he has times when he shines is something to keep reinforcing.

Overall, kids want to be seen and know that they are appreciated. That’s why I spent some extra time telling C that I always see how amazing he is and that he is special in his own way. I also emphasized that attention doesn’t mean we love or appreciate anyone more or less. It’s just what is needed at the time mostly (crying baby gets the attention most of the time!). C seems to understand this and I reminded him that whenever he wanted attention or 1 on 1 time, he can just ask nicely for it and we will plan it out! As long as kids know that, I think that’s plenty for them to feel secure at home.