Tonight we came up with another game. Games make everything better for both of us. Today was a long day at work and a long day at school and we were both showing up pretty tired.

What was the game? 

Well, since we’ve spent several weeks now working on our sound-symbol knowledge (which is just a fancy way of saying our ability to match the symbol of each letter to the sound it makes) I wanted to check in to see how many my daughter could do by herself. In most sessions, I don’t quiz her on her knowledge but instead, use it as an opportunity to give her as many exposures to a certain concept as I can. For example, I tell her that the symbol k makes the sound /k/ at least 2-3 times in our various warm-up routines. First, I will point to each letter, say the keyword it is associated with, and say the sound it makes. Then I will ask my daughter to do the same - touching the letter, saying the keyword, and saying the sound. Next, I will make the sound and ask my daughter to point to its corresponding symbol. If she struggles, I tell her which row it’s in. If she still struggles, I tell her to use the picture to help her and I say the sound over and over, throwing in the full keyword if needed. If she still can’t get it or guesses incorrectly, I show her the correct answer and have her repeat the letter name, keyword, and sound one more time. Then I will have her write the letter she just found and say the sound it makes again out loud as she writes it. See how I sneak in as many exposures as I can? After about ten sessions like this, I wanted to see how many my daughter could do by herself.

So I asked her to play a game with me. I made a t-chart on the top of the mini whiteboard we use for our lessons. I added the first letter of my name on one side and the first letter of her name on the other side. I told her that for every letter she could touch, say the name, say the keyword, and say the sound it makes by herself, she would get a point. And I got a point for every time I helped her with a sound. Her eyes lit up, she clasped her hands together, staring at the top. Our score was 15-6, with her in the lead. She was so proud! Even if I would have beat her, I would have highlighted how many she got correct to help her understand her baseline. From there, any progress was progress! No matter how long it took her, I knew that if she could see herself grow by even one point each session, her buy-in to this thing we do together would grow. I got lucky that she beat me by so much the first check-in and we talked about how next time, she could try to get 16 points so that only 5 were left for me. She laughed and said she knew she could do it. I told her I have no doubt she can.

We’ll let you know how it goes.