Well, her teacher thinks it is a confidence thing and like I mentioned, she is a perfectionist. She really hates making mistakes. Even in Kinder, she’d rather keep her mouth shut than make a mistake. So we work really hard at not correcting her and making her feel like she messed something up. With spelling, we just ask “well, is that what it sounds and looks like to you?” If she says yes, then we leave it at that.
When it comes to sight words – omg – she hates sounding things out. Again, because she doesn’t want to mess up. She’ll look to me for cues or to help her. I don’t. Then she’ll look at the first letter and just throw out any word that starts with that letter, hoping it’s the right word. It’s SOOOO frustrating. And I’m trying so hard not to get frustrated because I want reading to be a positive for her. But there have been times where she’s sat at the table in tears because she’s sooooo scared to sound something out and no one is helping her. For the harder words, I have her spell it to me. Then we break the words down by syllable. Then I push her to put it together. After that, I push her to take the initiative to work it all out.
We’re the same with reading. She has 3 Peppa Pig books she’s basically memorized and likes to read to me. I then introduce a new book one night, read it to her, and then have her read it to me the next night. But I feel like it’s all easy stuff. We’ve been on the BOB books since Pre-K! I feel like she should be well beyond that.
