Hero(7) is closing in on the end of phonics. Nobody's in any particular hurry; Hero reads pretty well, though he still needs practice. But phonics isn't very exciting at this point, so we are just taking it slow.
Interestingly, he's been having a vocabulary expansion. I can tell because suddenly he's asking for definitions again.
Gargantuan. Resilient. Commandeer.
I've been pointing out root words and helping him see the connections.
Tricycle. Triceratops.
Automatic. Automobile.
He's catching idioms and checking their meaning.
Looking down the barrel of.
There's tons of growth going on, and it's fascinating to watch it unfold, like a bud coming to bloom, one petal, on bit at a time. When we finish phonics, the plan is to have a look at word families, using English from the Roots Up. I have a feeling that we won't use the book the way it says we ought to.
I ran across this video. Fascinating stuff. I love language. It's so much fun to see my son become more sophisticated in its use.
Which brings me to spelling. I don't love spelling. Spelling never made any sense; I knew nothing about phonics. Add that to the way I read -not just word, but whole phrases at a glance; I don't even see the letters most of the time- I was a very bad speller for a very long time. I sometimes leave whole syllables out, though not as much anymore; I've been working on it for a long time.
This video brings it together for me. The phonics I've been learning alongside Hero (never was very good pronouncing things in my head, so I don't), the root words that I'm passingly familiar with, but I'm really looking forward to doing that in an explicit, organized way. Entomology has always been fun, but now I'm realizing it holds clues to the mystery of spelling.
It's just all so interesting.
P.S. I'm so glad you stopped by to read about the adventures at our house! If you want more, "Like" my blog on Facebook to get posts (and the articles n things I wish I had time to blog about) in your feed. Wanna see all the projects and ideas that I may or may not get around to? Follow me on Pinterest. Thanks for stopping by!
2 comments:
Hero is SEVEN? No...I must have read that wrong?
So glad to read everything is going swimmingly in homeschool. =) =)
Almost 7.5, actually. We're planning a baptism this September. He's not that much younger than your Andrew! But it's very easy for kids you don't see to remain the same age in your head... and it's been a day or two since we got down your way.
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